Kami Monogatari
by Queen
Summary: A haunted ancient mansion...and a ghost that haunts dreams....This time, just finding the shards of the Shikon no Tama won't be so easy....(complete)
1. Prologue

Kami Monogatari

  
  
  


Prologue: 

Breaking the surface of the nightmare tide, she screamed.   
Heartbeat, a heartbeat in her ears, pounding rapidly as her eyes flicked open to the darkness, breathing as the world again became steady beneath her.   
"Kagome, daijobu ka?"   
The words were echoed moments later by other voices, literally pounding down the paper walls between rooms. "Kagome? Kagome?" the voice repeated, questioning the source of the sound. A worried voice, gruffly growing closer. Kagome pressed her hands against her face for a moment, burying it from sight, as though to keep the world away. Flashes of memory stirred in her mind, remnants of the dream she did not wish for. Part of her was angry. Part of her was hurt. But it was a dream, and she knew it was a dream, and so she did not shove Inuyasha away when he grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look at him. "Kagome? What happened?"   
She shook herself, shaking the dream away, brushing it aside. It was a dream, just a dream, and she would not think about it anymore. But it was not just a dream. She touched the hollow of her throat, where icy cold fingers had pressed, drawing her down. Pale white eyes, blank white eyes. Just a dream, but not just a dream. "There's something here," she said softly, letting her hands slide away from her face. She was awake now, and she would not be afraid. Shadows shifted around them, and at her feet, she felt Shippou move a bit closer. If there was something there, he certainly did not want to be the first to come in contact with it. Better to be close to someone else.   
Uncertainly, Inuyasha looked around, golden eyes searching the shadows. "I don't see anything. I don't smell anything either. Are you sure you weren't just...."   
"Kagome-sama is correct," Miroku commented, casting a glance at the sharp angle of shadow against the wall. Traceries of faded light filtered through the shoji door, painted cranes and bamboo silhouetted against the outside moon's paleness. "There was something here."   
"Youkai?" came the question from Sango, who was kicking back the folds of light blanket on her futon, straightening out her yukata as she stood. "The evil aura, houshi-sama?"   
Miroku's lips went into a fine line, frowning at the empty corner. "That is most likely."   
"Are you all right, Kagome?" Inuyasha asked, tilting his head to the side to look at her face. Her eyes were distant, focused inward, there yet far.   
"Hai," she replied faintly, not really listening.   
She shivered, shaking her head and rubbing a hand over her eyes. It wasn't real. She was being silly, self centered, having such a nightmare. But Inuyasha's hands still rested on her shoulders, ready to shake her if her mind wandered too far. Awake, awake, alive and awake. Real. Solid. She touched the white hemline of his inner kimono, reassuring herself. A nightmare, but she fought her way free. On her own. She was free.   
"Do you remember anything, Kagome-sama?" Miroku was drawing a pair of ofuda from his robe, and began to place one against the window and its gathered shadows. To drive away the nightmares.   
Remember?   
Inuyasha. Kikyou.   
Inuyasha..._with _Kikyou.   
"No...no, nothing. Cold," she pressed her fingers to her throat in memory. Strands of hair clung to her cheeks and she pushed them away. She forced a smile to her lips, and it was thin. "I'm all right. Just shaken up. It didn't get to me."   
There was a soft noise of blade against scabbard, the sound of Sango checking her sword, before quickly strapping it around her waist. "Since we're all fine, I'm going to go check on Yanagi-san and Kagan-san. Make sure they're all right."   
"Hey!" Shippou shouted, insulted, as Miroku picked him up by the tail. "What are you doing?"   
"We're going to put some more ofuda up. I should have done this before we went to sleep tonight."   
"You didn't have to pull on my tail!"   
Miroku gave him a narrow look, raising the kitsune to his eye level. Shippou folded his arms and looked stubborn, then snuck a glance at Kagome, still half hidden behind Inuyasha.   
"Hai...." he agreed after a moment.   
"Good," the houshi said, sliding open the door and letting moonlight from the inner courtyard spill into the room, hazy and silver.   
Inuyasha hesitated, understanding that he would be left alone with Kagome, should the others leave. It wasn't an unpleasant prospect, but an awkward one, and he tried to cover for himself, releasing his hold on her and moving as though to pick up Tetsusiaga, which he had set down before him when he saw there was no danger in the girls' room. "Then I'll go with Sango, in case-"   
"Inuyasha," the taiji-ya said, pausing at the shoji and motioning to her feet, where a small, feline youkai stood. "I've got Kirara with me. You'd better stay here, in case it comes back."   
She was giving him an excuse, and he knew it. Inuyasha didn't like to feel as though others were manipulating him, or even helping him, even ones he admitted- to himself, of course, never out loud- were friends. "Feh. Then when I hear you screaming for...."   
There was the soft sound of a door sliding shut, and they were alone. Inuyasha folded his arms and sniffed, annoyed that she had left before he could finish his little rant. It was so quiet, and there was the sound of soft breathing beside him. There was little enough light in the room, darkening the planes of her face and shadowing her eyes behind a veil of black hair. When he released her, she had brought up her knees, wrapping her arms around them, hugging herself. The scent of sweat clung around her still, evidence of a recent scare and surge of adrenaline, mixing with the faintly floral scent he was accustomed to.   
"This was a bad idea."   
"Maybe. But there is a shard here. Somewhere."   
"Are you all right?"   
"I'm fine."   
"You don't remember anything?"   
A pause. Then, "No."   
He arched an eyebrow, knowing she was lying. But he wasn't going to press about it. The darkness made her look thin, though his eyes now could see the expression on her face reforming. The sadness and touch of hurt fading away, replaced with a thoughtful look, brows drawing down into an expression he was growing to know. She was working things out in her head, thinking things through.   
"I don't think that thing has the shards."   
"Feh. Assuming there was a thing, you're probably right. It would have done more damage if it had."   
Kagome released her knees, turning to look at him evenly. "I'm fine, Inuyasha. Everyone's fine. Sango would have shouted by now if Yanagi-san and Kagan-san were hurt. And there was...something. And that's good news."   
"How the hell is that good news?" he asked, blinking. Kagome could get happy at the strangest things sometimes. "A mononoke or something around here? I can't smell anything, and it's already attacking...."   
Kagome was shaking her head, calmness returning as she examined the situation. She held up a finger. "First, we know that whatever we're fighting doesn't have the shards. Not yet. Second," she held up another finger, "we know how it attacks. Miroku-sama will put up some more ofuda, and it'll keep it away from us when we sleep. That's more than we knew an hour ago."   
"This entire thing is stupid," he grunted, folding his arms again and not trying to meet her eyes. She was right, after all. But the expense had been her almost...possibly...getting hurt. And if what she said were true, then he was helpless to fight it, if it existed by slipping into the mind. Tetsusiaga and claw and a bad attitude were worth very little in a place he could not reach. "What are we going to do? Randomly poke around the place until you see the shards?"   
Kagome bit her lip, sighed, then shrugged. "Come to think of it, most of the time, when we get shards, someone else has already found them. We just take them away." She hesitated, thinking of something. "If that yurei...if it had..." she shook her head, still slightly fuzzy from sleep, trying to put together words. "...if it doesn't have any, then it must be looking for them as well." Reaching for her neck, she drew out the chain her portion of the jewel was attached to. It glowed faintly, iridescent and glittering, lavenders, yellows and reds reflecting into her face, reflecting into her eyes and against her hair, setting them alight. "Maybe it can't get to the ones already here for some reason. Maybe that's why it's after mine."   
That only served to worry him more, but he shrugged instead. "Well, whatever it's doing," he cracked his knuckles, experimenting with his claws. "I'll take care of it."   
She smiled faintly at his bravado. But she remained silent, hand against her neck, glad that the glacial touch of those invisible fingertips began to warm.   
Protect her. Yes, he could protect her. But nightmares cannot be shredded, even with the sharpest of winds. She cupped her hands around the glowing Shikon no Tama, and let the shards of her nightmare fade away.   
  
  
  


****************************************** 

Welcome, minna, to my fic. Just so you know, this Prologue starts out 'en media res'...in the middle of things. Chapter 1 will start at the beginning, and lead you up to where the Prologue starts. So don't feel confused. Read on, it'll clear up for you.   
This is my first full length Inuyasha fic. I've written a couple of IY one shots, so I'm not totally new to this- (and I've been writing fanfics for a couple years, so I'm not really a writing newbie....) but this is a little different from one shots. ^.~   
Just so you know, this isn't a romance...wait!! ::latches onto your hand and refuses to let you click the back button:: It's not primarily, but there IS some fun waffy stuff in here for all you romance lovers. I'm not usually a big romantic writer, but for some reason, I can't help myself with this series. I love the pairings. Inuyasha/Kagome, Sango/Miroku. Their relationships are either 1. too complicated and bizarre, or 2. just plain too funny/fun. So kick back, relax, and bear with me as the story unfolds. Patience is a virtue. :P   
Fic is rated PG-13, mainly for language. If you don't know who the pottymouth is by now...take a wild guess.   
I've tried to be accurate to the historical settings used in this fic, though I am no expert on Japanese history/mythology/language. If I've made some glaring error, email and let me know. I'll clear it up as soon as I can. (Unless it completely obliterates my storyline...then...well, it's just a fic.) I've done some research into the eras involved, obviously the sengoku jidai (Did you know there was actually a feudal warlord named Hojo? o.O;;) and into the Heian period, some couple hundred years prior to the feudal age. Why the Heian? lol, you'll see, and I'll explain more in further Authors Notes. Get your daily history lesson, minna! lol. I'll also explain where I got certain bits of information from, so if I have made any glaring errors, I'll at least know where I messed up.   
Final things...arigatou to Chira, for reading ahead for me and making sure I wasn't contradicting anything in the IY canon...and to Miss Dream-chan (as always) for listening to me babble about the series so much that I got you hooked on it too. (bwahaha!!)   
As for a disclaimer...::looks around shiftily:: Inuyasha is mine!! All mine!! ::grabs Inuyasha and runs as as hordes of lawyers charge after her:: 

Enjoy. ^.~   
Ja ne!   
-Queen   
iceaffinity@hotmail.com 


	2. The Place Where Dreams Are Born

Terms of note:   
youkai- demon   
hanyou-half youkai   
shoji- a paper door   
ofuda- a piece of paper used by Miroku to seal or banish evil spirits   
mononoke- a vengeful spirit/youkai/monster   
bouzu- insulting term for monk   
tatami- a floor mat   
shikon no kakera- shikon shards   
jiji- old man/geezer   
babaa- old woman/old hag   
daiymo- a feudal warlord   
okaa-san- mother   
Itadakimasu- variously translated. Said before eating.   
  
  
  
  


Kami Monogatari   


_...after death, a human being becomes a spirit, sometimes a deity._   
_It is believed that eight million deities inhabit the heavens and the earth_   
_- the mountains, the forests, the seas, and the very air that is breathed._   
_Traditions tell us that these deities_   
_have two souls: one gentle (nigi-mitama), and the other violent (ara-mitama)._   
_-from, 'Ghosts, Demons and Spirits in Japanese Lore'_   
_by: Norman A. Rubin_   


_Ara-mitama, nigi-mitama, kushi-mitama and saki-mitama._   
_ All together these become one spirit, and in the flesh they live inside the heart._   
_Human nature is correctly maintained between them._   
_-Miroku, Chapter 94, 'The Birth of the Jewel'_

  
  
  
  
  


Chapter 1: The Place Where Dreams Are Born   


It was a ruby sunset, a liquid prism melting into the western horizon, sinking behind the black wings of a classical manor. It was a green world, lush and still fragrant from fresh rain, clouds only now swept away, rushing from the dying beams of sunlight. Rain had poured though the day, making the river they followed rise and turn white with small rapids, leaving their path muddy and puddle filled, caking bare feet, sandals and knee socks alike with wet clay and dirt. And now the fading light haloed the old mansion that grew before them, touching the black roofs with red shadows.   
"How beautiful," Sango commented, tilting back her head to look up the slope. She slid off Kirara's back, resting a hand on the firecat's muzzle a moment before the feline flickered a bit, reducing her size and leaping up into her mistress's arms, mewing faintly. "It looks old."   
"And dangerous," Miroku continued, grip tightening on his staff for a moment, frowning thoughtfully. "I sense an evil aura over this mansion."   
Inuyasha snorted, giving the houshi an untrusting look. "Feh. A real evil aura, or just one that'll get you a futon for the night?"   
Miroku gave the hanyou a dirty look. "Do you doubt my judgment?"   
"No, just your honesty, bouzu."   
"Inuyasha..." Kagome said distractedly, only partially listening to the argument. She held the handlebars of her bicycle tightly, stepping off the pedals. "I think..."   
"They're not listening, Kagome," Shippou told her from the basket. He turned around and shrugged. "Maybe you should-"   
"Not in this muck," Kagome lifted a foot and wrinkled her nose. Arguing with Miroku was not a good enough excuse to 'osuwari' Inuyasha into a muddy road. "I'll just say, 'shikon no kakera' and..."   
"Eh?"   
"Kagome-sama?"   
Kagome sighed and shook her head. "...that'll get their attention."   
"A shikon shard? Here?" Sango asked, physically walking between the two males, to break them up a bit. She frowned when Kagome hesitated, biting her lip. "Kagome? What is it?"   
"It's...strange. Faint..." she shook her head uncertainly, "but here. I don't know."   
"Well, then we'll have to go in," Inuyasha decided, sending a quick glare at Miroku. "And take care of whatever's causing the 'evil aura'." He placed a hand on the hilt of the Tetsusaiga, intent clear.   
"You can't always pummel your enemies into a pulp, Inuyasha."   
"Feh."   


It was the eastern gate, a tall black archway lifting overhead as they walked though, gracefully welcoming visitors. But it was an empty place, and the small group looked around to see only vacant courtyard, broken with a small lake and streams leading away and under the mansion's light columns. Willowy trees graced the narrow banks. Several of the small bridges used to cross the streams had been broken, and across the open plaza, the western gate showed signs of abuse, several chunks of rock crumbling to the ground. Shadows gathered in the porches, touched only with the redness of the setting sun. Had the water of the lake not sparkled crimson, it would clearly reflect the home, lending it the appearance of a floating world, celestial and heavenly, light. Above the clouds. But it was edging closer to ruin, somewhat battered.   
Inuyasha sniffed the wind. "There's been fighting here," he considered the damage around them. "Not recently, but not too long ago. Month or so, maybe. Youkai. But the scent's old. Sure you're not confused, bouzu?"   
"I am not confused. There is an evil aura here."   
"Feh," he turned away and looked at Kagome, who had propped her bike up against a wall, and was tentatively walking further out into the courtyard, Shippou on her shoulder. "Oy, Kagome! Anything?"   
Kagome held her fingertips to her lips in uncertainty, trying to figure out where the feeling was coming from. It was permeating the place, flowing and shifting around her, making the hair on her neck prickle and her blood run cold. Her ability of sensing shards was still a bit erratic, and the search always involved scrounging around, interacting with people. And there was no one here, or so it seemed.   
"Shippou-chan!"   
She grabbed the kitsune and leapt to the side as an arrow sliced though the air, embedding itself where she had stood.   
"Kagome!" Inuyasha called, rushing forward. Seeing she was unhurt, he switched directions, this time following the arrow's arc, a place hidden in the recesses of the nearest porch. A second arrow flew outward, and he knocked it aside, swatting it away easily, focusing on the man emerging on the porch steps, already nocking another arrow. Even as the man drew back again, Inuyasha reached him, grabbing him by the throat and pinning him against the light column beside the steps. "Who the hell are you?"   
Their attacker refused to meet Inuyasha's eyes and struggled, scratching at the hand pinning him, then thinking better of it and going for the hanyou's eyes.   
"Hey!" Inuyasha smacked the hands away from his face, hefting the man up a bit more. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"   
That only served to infuriate the man, who was quickly loosing strength, shoulders slumping down. Whitening hair had been loosed from a small tail, falling in tangles into a lined face. "I will not abandon my home to filthy youkai!"   
Inuyasha arched an eyebrow. "Who's filthy?"   
"Inuyasha," Kagome warned as she approached, "he's just protecting his home. Put him down."   
"He tried to kill you!"   
Inuyasha was able to read the following expression that formed on Kagome's face. It usually preceded the word 'osuwari.'   
Inuyasha dropped the man into a heap, who began to rub his neck, coughing lightly as he warily eyed the people standing over him. A white haired youkai and a girl dressed very strangely, carrying what appeared to be a small child...with a tail. Two others approached from behind, coming to peer into the shadows under the porch, a woman carrying a cat and a man dressed as monk.   
"I will not leave," the man repeated, still suspicious.   
"Who's asking you to-" Inuyasha began, but was cut off as Miroku pushed his way forward.   
"Gomen, for Inuyasha's rudeness. I am Miroku, a servant of-"   
"Feh! Who asked you to interrupt, bouzu!"   
Miroku ignored him.   
The argument only confused the man, who backed away a bit, until the girl in strange clothes pushed them aside. "Don't listen to Inuyasha and Miroku-sama," she sighed, shaking her head. "My name is Higurashi Kagome. And this is Sango, and Shippou. Miroku-sama sensed an evil aura over your home...we don't mean any harm."   
The man's eyes shifted to Inuyasha, who had his arms folded and was glaring.   
Kagome tried to smile encouragingly. "Don't mind Inuyasha. His bark is worse than his bite."   
"Feh!"   
Kagome shook her head. "See?"   
Slowly, the man gathered himself, leaning up against the roofbeam beside him for support. His knees crackled slightly from age and use, and he stepped away from the group a bit, warily. "So then why are you here?"   
"Kagan, stop being so suspicious," a voice snapped from behind the shoji door. A woman emerged from behind it, somewhat plump and with grey streaked black hair. She slid the door back into place, coming to stand beside the man. "If they meant harm, that one would have killed you already."   
"I told you to stay inside!"   
The woman made a small 'humph' sound, shrugging and appearing not to listen to the man she addressed as Kagan. "Don't mind him. He's too much of a worrier." She smiled warmly, brown eyes full of teasing.   
"And you're reckless!"   
She shrugged. "I'm Yanagi. This is my husband, Kagan. It has been some time since we have received visitors. And never youkai."   
She spoke calmly, evenly, with authority, as though accustomed to explaining and giving orders. Watchfully, she seemed to be examining each member of the group, eyes finally resting on Miroku, and piecing together one part of the story. "There is nothing that can be done, houshi-sama."   
"Eh?"   
Yanagi shook her head, and she and Kagan seemed to lean in towards one another, either out of habit or support. She was silent, and Kagan continued for her. "You're not the only ones who've come. You'd best leave, before it gets dark."   
"Too late for that," Sango said, glancing up at the sky. "Sunset already. What's going on?"   
"None of your damn business-" Kagan began, but was cut off by Yanagi.   
"We won't leave," she said, clasping the sleeve of Kagan's kimono and clenching her fingers until her knuckles turned white. "It's dangerous here. You'd best go."   
"This is getting really stupid," Inuyasha muttered, then spoke up. "Look, there's no youkai around here. We're just here to get the shikon no kakera. That's probably your problem in the first place."   
"Shikon..." Kagan began.   
"...no kakera?" Yanagi finished, both looking puzzled. "Nani?"   
"This," Kagome tried to explain, pulling out her portion of the jewel from her shirt, glowing faintly. "We're trying to find the rest...it attracts youkai, sometimes...really, we don't mean any harm. We'll find it and leave."   
"Kagome, I told you, there's no damn youkai here!"   
"Yeah, but something's got to be causing the evil aura!"   
"Hell if I know what! It's not youkai!"   
"But then...."   
They were interrupted by Yanagi's laughter, a light chuckle, accompanied by a wave of her hand. "Yare, yare. Your youkai friend is correct." Her expression sobered a bit as she continued, folding her hands together. "There hasn't been a youkai here for better than a cycle of the moon. Come...if you're determined to find this...shard...then we'd best speak indoors. I've got rice cooking, and-"   
"Yanagi!" Kagan exclaimed.   
"...and you're welcome here," she concluded, bowing slightly. "Come, before my rice boils over." She released her husband and began to walk down the steps, pushing her way past the group and heading across the courtyard. "So horrible to clean up."   


The kitchen was small, filled with cookpots and a low table in the corner, where the males of the group quickly settled in, save for Shippou, who settled himself on the counter. He was quickly given the task of stirring the rice, and began to wish he had chosen another place to put himself. The women began to move about the kitchen, Yanagi issuing quick orders to feed the increased numbers at their table. Food was pulled out of storage bins, and began to fill the room with the savory scent of their meal.   
Kagan frowned at the two who had settled themselves on either side of him. He had taken his place at the head of the table, legs folded and back straight, absently combing his hair with his fingers and returning it to the small ponytail. "We'll let you stay," he allowed after a moment, gruffly. "For tonight. You'll find your shikon thing and leave."   
"Eh...sounds fine with me, Kagan-jiji," Inuyasha said, eyeing the older man. "That's all we want. If there's no youkai here, we'll just take the thing and leave."   
Kagan didn't seem particularly persuaded by Inuyasha, remaining suspicious of the outsiders. Simply strolling up to the gate and looking around. No one came this way, not for a long time, and not without reason. Though the area was beautiful, old legends of the past haunted the shadows, and recent events only held to the stories. Recent attacks he had seen made him skeptical of strangers, and there was a bit of challenge in his voice when he asked, "Don't want to run into any more of your kind here, youkai?"   
Inuyasha had decided the man wasn't worth getting worried over. "Feh."   
Miroku sighed, wondering at the like personalities. "Actually, Kagan-san, Inuyasha is hanyou, not youkai."   
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" came the sharp retort.   
"Maybe not. But you shouldn't assume simply by appearances," the houshi warned Kagan, who nodded slightly at the words.   
He regarded the two for a moment, then glanced over the houshi's shoulder at the bustling figure of his wife in the kitchen, ordering the strangely dressed one- Kagome, he remembered- on how to properly work the brazier, keeping the coals the right temperature. Smoke drifted up into their faces, accompanied by small waves of heat. Strange people, he thought, but then the houshi did have a point. Slowly, he conceded, calling a small truce, "I suppose you could have killed me then."   
It hung for a moment, and Inuyasha shrugged. "You're slow, jiji."   
And that seemed to be the end of it.   
"This...shikon no kakera...you're looking for. It's what's causing the accidents?"   
"Probably," Inuyasha replied, deciding to answer the question before asking about the 'accidents'. "Kagome did say earlier it brings a lot of youkai around, looking for it. Don't know what's causing the problems now, but when we find out what does have it, we'll take care of things." He stretched his claws idly, intent clear.   
"Kagan-san," Miroku asked, "when exactly did these youkai attacks end?"   
He shrugged, and opened his mouth to answer, only to hesitate at the arrival of Yanagi, kneeling and placing a dish of rice between them. Moving back so that he could look the houshi in the face, he began, "About a month ago, they stopped. Not really sure why. But that was the beginning of the worst of it."   
"Worst of it?"   
Kagan nodded, edging away to give Yanagi more room to stand. "Hai. Strange accidents. People started getting sick. Collapsing. We've never had this kind of problem here before. Started scaring people away, even those who'd lived here most of their lives," he said, pausing for a moment at the end, implying that he and Yanagi had also lived here 'most of their lives.'   
"And most of us didn't want to leave," Yanagi added as she returned, this time with a stack of bowls in her hands, handing them down to Miroku, who accepted them. Kagome and Sango arrived, carrying bowls of food and setting them out, to the clattering of plates being sent around the table. Steam wafted up from the dishes, grilled eggplant and steamed fish, a delicious assortment varying from their usual fare. "Kagan and I are very fortunate. We've never been hurt."   
"Why?" Miroku asked, curiously.   
The couple looked at each other and shook their heads. "We don't know," she replied softly. "But so long as we're not, we've decided to stay."   
"Itadakimasu!" Shippou cried as he began to scoop rice into his bowl from the larger plate. "Finally, real food!"   
Yanagi smiled at the kitsune's exuberance and settled herself down opposite Kagan. Sango sat on Shippou's opposite side, well out of Miroku's wandering reach. Kagome sat beside Inuyasha, telling him to straighten up since he was partially sprawled across that side of the table.   
"Inuyasha, that's rude...get your feet out of my way."   
Grumbling, he sat up, reaching for his own bowl and scooping fish and eggplant into it. "So this place has been your home for awhile, eh?" he asked as he stuffed his face with food. "Pretty old."   
"Hai," Yanagi nodded, bowing her head for a moment. "Several hundred years. We've rebuilt time and again, even during my lifetime."   
"Mansions like this used to be for court members, ne?" Sango asked, placing a few bits of fish into a spare bowl and setting it beside her, causing Kirara to dart out of her corner and begin her own dinner. "It's very elaborate."   
"Hai. Okaa-san told me that this place has an old story, about the first people who lived here," Yanagi told her, lifting some eggplant to her lips thoughtfully. "A nobleman built this place for his young wife. But one day, when he was in court, there was a tremor in the earth, and her lamp overturned. There are still old char marks in the older wing of the house."   
"How awful," Sango murmured, assuming the rest of the story from the somber tone Yanagi used when speaking of it. "Did he stop coming here, then?"   
Yanagi swallowed and shook her head. "Court kept him in Kyoto most of the time. He never remarried, and died many years later, of a sickness. Or at least that's what okaa-san said."   
"Cheerful story," Inuyasha muttered, and got a sharp elbow in the side from Kagome. "Oy!"   
"Inuyasha," Kagome hissed quietly. "Be nice."   
"Yeah, well everybody died!"   
Kagome sighed and shook her head. "It's a beautiful home, Yanagi-san."   
"It's been passed though that family's line for years," Kagan continued as Yanagi stood, brushing off her cooking apron. Moments later, she returned with a pitcher of clear water, setting it on the table for them to pour. "But it's people like Yanagi and I who keep it up. In this era, I don't think anyone owns it anymore."   
"Then that should make it your home," Sango told him. "With the daiymo constantly infighting, this place has been overlooked without a feudal lord of its own. Once we get the shikon no kakera out of here, then the others who lived-"   
"Shikon no kakera, shikon no kakera," Kagan repeated, sending a sharp glance at Sango, since she was speaking. "They told me it attracts youkai. What worries me is why it attracts you."   
She met his gaze evenly, lightly resting a hand on Kirara's uplifted head. "That's a long story in and of itself, Kagan-san. But we all have good reason."   
The skeptical man held her eyes, reading them cautiously. They were steady, but open, face set firmly, decidedly. Slowly, he shifted his look, meeting each in turn. Even the kitsune child looked back at him, with a variation of the same expression. Determination, anger, and a sense of duty. Kagan decided not to press, since it would seem rude. Personal reasons, he began to realize, and to ask for more would be wrong.   
"Hai, then," he said after a time. "Daimyo aside. We'll show you to a set of rooms after dinner."   
  


It was a beautiful room, in the northern hall, old and elegant, with polished wooden floors, partially covered by newly woven tatami. Yanagi had commandeered Inuyasha and Miroku, making them drag futons halfway across the mansion's expanse. The rooms, being old, were sets of screens, beautifully painted, portraying wild geese and bamboo shoots, cranes half hidden by the imaginary marshland. Lit by candles, the warm yellow glow made them float, as though shadows passing over the paper.   
"They'd better not try peering around," Sango muttered as she untied her hair, then rummaged through her packs. She pitched her voice a bit louder, asking, "Hear that, houshi-sama? No peeping!"   
A dry, "Hai," called back from the other side of the screen, and Sango frowned, not really trusting him.   
She turned back to Kagome, running a comb though her hair. Then, quieter, so not to be overheard, "I wish there were separate rooms. Real separate rooms."   
"Miroku-sama will behave," Kagome replied just as quietly, with a small grin as she kicked off her shoes and socks, then rolled back her futon. "I'll tell Inuyasha to pound him good if he doesn't."   
Sango rolled her eyes and tucked her hair behind her ear. "It's different on the road. Somehow having an actual room to sleep in makes you want to act a bit more civilized." She yawned, rubbing her eyes with her fingertips, then set her comb aside.   
"These were probably rooms for a lady once," Kagome said softly as she pulled the covers up to her chin, fluffing out her hair around her head so that it didn't stick to her neck. Her hair fell in a dark aureole around her face, slipping across the small pillow. "The screens for her ladies in waiting. No privacy," she sighed, suppressing a yawn, "not really."   
"You're probably right," Sango sighed, sliding into her own futon, Kirara curling up under her chin and purring faintly. She gave the twin tailed cat an amused look, then pushed her back just a bit. "You reek of sulfur, Kirara. Not good to sleep with. Have to get you cleaned up soon."   
"Maybe they have a bath," Kagome mumbled sleepily, her eyes lightly closed, lashes resting against her cheeks. "We'll have to ask...."   
"Hai," Sango agreed, curling up around Kirara, regardless of smell, closing her eyes and turning away. But Kagome was not listening, resting lightly and drifting away to sleep. The day was a long one with the morning rain, and she had quickly changed into her spare clothes, her uniform dirty from the rain and road dirt. The tatami made the hardwood floor a bit softer, and with the futon, it was easy to relax. On the edges of her senses, she could hear the sound of water, flowing. Drowsily, she realized she was not imagining it, and mentally ran though the way the old palace looked. One of the streams ran under the structure, flowing out into the river beyond the mansion's walls; a simple, contrived elegance. Below her, she could hear its murmur, and the sound of water subtly shifting and splashing against stone and streambed.   
She drifted on a loose tide of dreams, relaxing into a welcoming sleep. Neither girl saw the swirling of shadows that accompanied the silencing of their candlelight. Kagome did not acknowledge the sensation of coldness that pressed with invisible fingertips to her throat, lightly touching. Only buried herself deeper into the light blanket, shivering slightly as her dreams flowed into the water, submerging into a glassy, blackened illusion.   
  
  
  
  
  
  


***************************************** 

  


Hi again. More notes...let's see. Names? Yanagi and Kagan. Yanagi translates to 'willow' and Kagan to 'riverside' or 'riverbank.' I thought the names fit together well for an old married couple. ^.~ The mansion they live in is from the Heian era that I mentioned in the prologue. That's roughly the 11th century, and it was when the imperial court in Miyako -I've also seen 'Heianko'- modern day Kyoto- was at its peak. Heian was basically a classical era, and the court was full of the arts, music and literature being very important. It was in the Heian that the world's first novel was composed- _'Genji Monogatari'_ or, _'The Tale of Genji'_ and partial inspiration for the title of this fic. A monogatari is 'a telling' or, 'a story.' Kami are gods/divine spirits in Shinto. So the fic's title is something like _'A Tale of the Kami'_ or _'A Tale of Spirits.'_   
_'The Tale of Genji'_ was written in the early 11th century by Lady...yes, a woman...Lady Murasaki Shikibu. (Murasaki means 'lavender.') She lived at the court, and most noblewomen of her era were literate, devoting themselves to music and poetry. Murasaki penned the world's first novel in _'The Tale of Genji.'_ (It's also been made into a very nifty anime.... ^_^)   
Heian era mansions were usually large and somewhat bare of furniture...the lake and streams here were usual...they'd run under the structure, which was raised up from the ground. Rooms were usually large and without a lot of walls...so when Sango's worried about Miroku peeping, it'd be fairly easy for him to try...there's just a couple screens to move. >.;;   
Ja ne til next chapter!   
-Queen 


	3. Morning Moon, In the Arms of the Willow

Kami Monogatari   
__

_'The mirror crack'd from side to side;_   
_"The curse is come upon me," cried_   
_The Lady of Shalott....'_   
_-Lady of Shalott, Alfred, Lord Tennyson___

_"Do you think that's air you're breathing now?"_   
_-Morpheus to Neo, The Matrix_

  
  
  
  


Chapter 2: Morning Moon, In the Arms of the Willow   
  


The world was cold and black, void of sound and thought, the spaceless blackness of a sleep without dreams. She opened her eyes, letting them become round, though they saw nothing but darkness. She held her hands before her face, and it was turned into nothing more than sightless gesturing. It was a freezing feeling of panic, to open her eyes and yet not see. But reason cut through as she struggled though murky memories. Faces still formed clearly in the sight of her mind, summoning her senses.   
"I am not blind," she said clearly, blinking.   
It caused the blackness to shift and warp, pulling tighter around her until she drowned, slipping again into waves unseen. Unsure in the darkness, she wrapped her arms around herself, curling together, floating wide on the silence that surrounded her. A gleam in the darkness, something to reach for, something to follow. And in the sliver of transparent light, she saw the faint outline of her hand, the contours of her fingers and palm, traceries of lines. She reached out for the light, and found herself at its edge.   
The world remained black, no walls, no floor, no ceiling to mark its location. But light radiated faintly from the hands of a petite white woman, whose eyes were pale, white. They were not the dark, shadowed eyes Kagome knew. Empty of emotion, empty of expression, the dark eyes of Kanna were haunted. And yet these eyes were sightless, and not her own.   
"This mirror reflects only your reality," the white woman told her, in a childlike voice so soft it whispered. "This mirror reflects only what you see."   
Kagome was not afraid. The stillness of Kanna, and the blind eyes that held her gaze showed no reason to fear. It was an intricate mirror, the edge wrought in silver, carved with delicate scenes of a floating world. Balanced in her tiny hands, the looking glass gleamed.   
That floating world on the mirror's edge broadened, spiraling larger and overcoming the black world, the gleam intensifying against the darkness, making it bleached and bright, blindingly so. She shielded her eyes and looked away, only to find herself caught in the emptiness of air, falling and floating down to her knees. The tiny scenes on the edge of the reflection became real, solid, tangible, and she curled her fingers into sweet, soft grass.   
The water of a river of forgetfulness flowed by her, reflecting her face into the water before her. A low bank, tall grasses tipping with flowers into the reflection. They rippled, then grew still, and she looked across the stream. A narrow cropping of stone, lit by the world's new brightness, extended into the lucid water. Sharp against the blankness beyond them, red scarred the scene, worn as the clothing of the figures that stood before her.   
"I..." the first sound died in her throat, and Kagome raised her hand to her lips. Those two figures looked at her, their gazes steady. But Kikyou leaned close to Inuyasha, within personal space, with a look of intense sadness on her features. So, too, with Inuyasha, who's eyes reflected regret. It was a bitter moment, not triumphant. He did not move to join Kagome, but remained beside the past. And in doing so, the past had won.   
She watched, dizzy, as Kikyou took his hand in hers.   
_ This mirror reflects only your reality. This mirror reflects only what you see._   
Kagome thought she was going to cry. How stupid, how silly, how selfish. Reality. Her reality. Then was this real? It seemed so. She could feel the ground below her, breathe the air around her. How could it not be real?   
"Kagome?"   
At her name, she looked up, uncertainly, hopefully. Large, sad golden eyes returned her look. She had never seen him look so sad before. "Gomen, Kagome. Gomen."   
It was real. It had to be real. He had chosen to go. This was goodbye. No fight to the finish. No pleading, no convincing. And that was why it felt so real. No dramatic scene. Simply...chosen...to go....   
Glowing balls of light lifted up from the ground, which depressed the rock they stood on.   
_This mirror reflects only your reality. This mirror reflects only what you see._   
She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to watch. He had said goodbye. She had no right to get upset. She had lost. How sad it was to lose. She ran her hands into her hair and clutched it, clutching her head, wishing herself away. She felt so stupid, watching as they sank down into the darkness, tears beginning to form in her eyes.   
But she felt angry anyway.   
Just leaving her like that?   
If she just had another moment, then she'd at least be able to say goodbye on her own. Stupid jerk, going off to hell with Kikyou just when...just when what? "Inuyasha no baka." Something in the air shifted. It grew cold in the whiteness. "Inuyasha no baka!" she repeated, louder. No, this wasn't right. She wouldn't just let him float away. This was no goodbye. If this was his idea of running off, then he had another thing coming. "This is a nightmare. You wouldn't do this...not like this. Not like this! And if you did...I'd never forgive you!"   
_ This mirror reflects only your reality. This mirror reflects only what you see._   
The words sliced across the air, chill. They cut, and the sound of shearing glass fell around Kagome, splintering the world into fragments, catching her into a broken shard of mirror. Blank eyes, pale white eyes, flashed across her vision. If this was her reality, then she would simply change it. The figures across from her fell away into the glass, shattering. Down into the water, down into the depths of dream, into the depths of memory.   
She drowned in the darkness. But she was free.   
  


Breaking the surface of the nightmare tide, she screamed.   
Heartbeat, a heartbeat in her ears, pounding rapidly as her eyes flicked open to the darkness, breathing as the world again became steady beneath her.   
"Kagome, daijobu ka?"   
The words were echoed moments later by other voices, literally pounding down the paper walls between rooms. "Kagome? Kagome?" the voice repeated, questioning the source of the sound. A worried voice, gruffly growing closer. Kagome pressed her hands against her face for a moment, burying it from sight, as though to keep the world away. Flashes of memory stirred in her mind, remnants of the dream she did not wish for. Part of her was angry. Part of her was hurt. But it was a dream, and she knew it was a dream, and so she did not shove Inuyasha away when he grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look at him. "Kagome? What happened?"   
She shook herself, shaking the dream away, brushing it aside. It was a dream, just a dream, and she would not think about it anymore. But it was not just a dream. She touched the hollow of her throat, where icy cold fingers had pressed, drawing her down. Pale white eyes, blank white eyes. Just a dream, but not just a dream. "There's something here," she said softly, letting her hands slide away from her face. She was awake now, and she would not be afraid. Shadows shifted around them, and at her feet, she felt Shippou move a bit closer. If there was something there, he certainly did not want to be the first to come in contact with it. Better to be close to someone else.   
Uncertainly, Inuyasha looked around, golden eyes searching the shadows. "I don't see anything. I don't smell anything either. Are you sure you weren't just...."   
"Kagome-sama is correct," Miroku commented, casting a glance at the sharp angle of shadow against the wall. Traceries of faded light filtered through the shoji door, painted cranes and bamboo silhouetted against the outside moon's paleness. "There was something here."   
"Youkai?" came the question from Sango, who was kicking back the folds of light blanket on her futon, straightening out her yukata as she stood. "The evil aura, houshi-sama?"   
Miroku's lips went into a fine line, frowning at the empty corner. "That is most likely."   
"Are you all right, Kagome?" Inuyasha asked, tilting his head to the side to look at her face. Her eyes were distant, focused inward, there yet far.   
"Hai," she replied faintly, not really listening.   
She shivered, shaking her head and rubbing a hand over her eyes. It wasn't real. She was being silly, self centered, having such a nightmare. But Inuyasha's hands still rested on her shoulders, ready to shake her if her mind wandered too far. Awake, awake, alive and awake. Real. Solid. She touched the white hemline of his inner kimono, reassuring herself. A nightmare, but she fought her way free. On her own. She was free.   
"Do you remember anything, Kagome-sama?" Miroku was drawing a pair of ofuda from his robe, and began to place one against the window and its gathered shadows. To drive away the nightmares.   
Remember?   
Inuyasha. Kikyou.   
Inuyasha..._with_ Kikyou.   
"No...no, nothing. Cold," she pressed her fingers to her throat in memory. Strands of hair clung to her cheeks and she pushed them away. She forced a smile to her lips, and it was thin. "I'm all right. Just shaken up. It didn't get to me."   
There was a soft noise of blade against scabbard, the sound of Sango checking her sword, before quickly strapping it around her waist. "Since we're all fine, I'm going to go check on Yanagi-san and Kagan-san. Make sure they're all right."   
"Hey!" Shippou shouted, insulted, as Miroku picked him up by the tail. "What are you doing?"   
"We're going to put some more ofuda up. I should have done this before we went to sleep tonight."   
"You didn't have to pull on my tail!"   
Miroku gave him a narrow look, raising the kitsune to his eye level. Shippou folded his arms and looked stubborn, then snuck a glance at Kagome, still half hidden behind Inuyasha.   
"Hai...." he agreed after a moment.   
"Good," the houshi said, sliding open the door and letting moonlight from the inner courtyard spill into the room, hazy and silver. He heard Inuyasha begin to say he'd accompany Sango, and was glad when she gave him a decent excuse to stay. And then Sango, too, was outside, shutting the shoji behind her, entering the narrow hallway. He fell into step just behind her as she began to head down the inner halls, the quickest way to the older couple's rooms. "Sango?"   
"Hm?" she paused, glancing over her shoulder. "Nani?"   
"Perhaps we shouldn't separate." She gave him a narrow look, and he hastened to add on, "You had a point...with Inuyasha. The thing may come back. We're less likely to be attacked in pairs. I'll post ofuda as we go."   
At his explanation, she nodded, understanding the logic of it. They were stronger in pairs. "Hai, houshi-sama," she agreed, allowing Miroku to step up beside her, and they made their way to Kagan and Yanagi's rooms, hesitating every few moments for him to draw an ofuda and place it against one of the posts. Shippou watched them from behind, glowering slightly. He grasped the concept that Kagome and Inuyasha should be left alone- he wasn't stupid. But he didn't think it was fair that everyone forgot about him half the time, marching away and doing business on their own. There wasn't much he could do about it, but still, it rankled.   
They passed the outer hallway, open to the courtyard and its ribbons of moonlit streams. To Shippou's youkai ears, he heard a faint sound, not quite a tapping, but an even noise, a beat in rhythm. As they passed the crux in halls, he hesitated, turning and peering outside as the two humans rounded the corner. Well, he decided, he knew how to get to where they were going. And if nothing else, he'd just hide. Or scream really, really loud. Either one would work. Neither Sango or Miroku had noticed he had stopped, though Kirara had turned her head. But she was there to follow Sango, not Shippou, and so with her mistress she stayed.   
The kitsune edged his way around, peering through the archway onto the verandah. The sound broke its pattern, picking up a bit, awkwardly, then stopping altogether. There, in the silver light of the moon, was a little girl. She was bent down, picking up a recently dropped ball, and turning it over in her hands. After a moment, the sound resumed, the faint noise of the girl's hands impacting on the leathery surface of her toy, tossed up into the air, then caught again. Wavy black hair spun around her, tied back in little purple ribbons, fluttering around her face as she tried to catch it. There were fireflies, floating lightly around her, tiny golden glows hovering over the water in the lake, reflective and reflecting.   
Shippou stared, tilting his head to the side slightly, partially in awe, partially in confusion. He had been very much under the impression that he, the rest of the group, and the older couple were the only ones there. No one said anything about a girl. Puzzled, he watched her, almost dancing, as she tossed the ball up again, folds of her robes floating around her. But there was no joy on her face, playing her game. She caught it again, but after a moment it slipped through her fingers, rolling away as she paused to wipe at her eyes with the back of her hand. After a moment, Shippou realized she was quietly crying.   
"Mew?"   
The sound of Kirara startled him out of his trance, blinking and turning to see Sango poke her head around the corner. "He's here, houshi-sama," she said over her shoulder to Miroku, who emerged as well. "Shippou-chan, you shouldn't run off. It's not safe."   
"But..." he began to protest, beginning to point at the lone girl. But when he moved to point at her, he found only empty courtyard. It was unnerving, enough to make him gape. In that moment, he suddenly felt himself get yanked up again. "Oy! Bouzu! Stop pulling on my tail!"   
"If something happened to our hosts while we searched for you, you're in trouble," he warned, turning and rejoining Sango and Kirara, as they headed their way down the hallway. After a moment, his tail was released, and he leapt over to Sango's shoulders, riding there instead. Maybe if Miroku hadn't yanked on his tail twice in one night, he'd have said something about what he saw. But right now, he thought it best if he just kept it to himself.   
  


There was a faint clicking sound as the shoji slid to a close, and Sango opened her eyes, still slightly sleepy, suppressing a yawn. "Kagome-chan?"   
"Hai. Did I wake you?" the other girl asked as she turned away from the door, heading inside. It was a hectic night, though in the end, it seemed harmless. Kagan and Yanagi had been awakened from a deep slumber, and worried about Kagome. Miroku had posted more ofuda, warding the room from whatever had attacked the time-traveling schoolgirl. An hour passed, then a second, and nothing happened. Eventually, calm won out, and they returned to their rooms to sleep.   
"Iie," Sango sighed, sitting up. "Not really. Just dozing...I didn't realize you were gone." Kagome moved to their packs, rifling through and shoving items back into her knapsack. Her hair was wet, though she still wore yesterday's rumpled clothes. "Found the bath?"   
"Better yet," Kagome grinned, picking up a brush and beginning work on the tangles in her hair. "They've got a hot spring out past the west gate. No wonder they built the mansion here. It's beauti-" her voice cut off as she winced, a hard knot catching in the brush's bristles. "Beautiful," she concluded after a moment, face a little sad.   
"Kagome-chan...are you sure you're all right?"   
"Yanagi-san gets up very early...there's breakfast already. Miso soup, and rice."   
"Kagome..." Sango repeated, getting worried. Kagome hesitated, met her eyes, then shied away.   
"I couldn't sleep...but it was just a dream. A bad dream. But I'm okay, really," she tucked a wisp of damp hair behind an ear, then cupped her brush in her hands, fiddling with it distractedly. She bit her lip. "I saw Inuyasha with Kikyou...that's all." She grinned a little, shaking her head. "I think I got out of the nightmare because I got mad at him for running off to hell."   
Kagome's reasoning struck Sango as funny, and she laughed lightly for a moment, tossing off her covers and dislodging Kirara. "Well, you seem to be all right. Maybe I should find my way back to the kitchen and get some breakfast too."   
"Yanagi-san left some plates out. Inuyasha's already sniffing around for the shard, and I think Shippou and Miroku-sama are still sleeping."   
Sango sent a wry glance at the screens between their rooms. "Maybe I should go find the hot spring first then. Take advantage of the quiet."   
Kagome nodded, catching her train of thought. "You know...here..." she began digging through her bag, tossing things out of her way as she rummaged. Sango watched, slightly bewildered as Kagome emerged, brandishing a small black...thing. She blinked as Kagome tried to push it at her. "I brought it for you. It's a bathing suit. Everyone uses them."   
Sango held the 'bathing suit' up to her, pulling a bit at the stretchy material. "It's...um..."   
"It's all right. It's lycra...everyone goes swimming in them."   
"There's...not much to it...."   
"It's a one-piece, not a bikini," Kagome told her, then began to gesture at herself in attempt to explain. "And it covers...all the necessary...parts?" She laughed a little nervously. "It's considered normal to wear something like this. And it'll cover you up enough you don't have to worry about Miroku-sama. Even if he is still asleep."   
Sango still wasn't entirely convinced, but she doubted Kagome would lie to her about the bathing habits of the people of her world. "Um...hai...arigatou?" Kagome nodded, and Sango began to collect her own things, moving to the door after a moment.   
"Ne, Sango." She turned in time to lift a hand and catch a bottle that Kagome lobbed at her. "It's just shampoo. I bought a new brand."   
She looked at the flowery pattern on the clear bottle's cover, and accepted it. She'd borrowed such things before, and the nice smelling liquid soap made her hair very soft. "Arigatou," she thanked her. "You said the western gate?"   
"Hai," Kagome replied, standing and dropping her brush into her bag. "There's a path. I'm going to go track down Inuyasha. Maybe I can help him."   
Sango nodded, opening the shoji, and the two girls slipped outside. 

  
The path was clearly marked, footworn from time. Flora filled the narrow walkway, chrysanthemums unfolding in the morning light, giving off a sweet fragrance. Parting ways, Sango headed down it, finding the high woven screens that shaded the steaming spring from onlookers, situated amongst large, moss covered rocks. Kirara dashed ahead then back again, sniffing the wind and running around, batting at a nearby cicada. It was quiet there, pines providing shade on the edges of the enclosure, and Sango quickly slipped into the 'bathing suit' Kagome had given her. It fitted itself to her, narrow, dark red racing stripes arching over her hips.   
"Well, Kirara?" she asked the cat, gesturing at her outfit for approval. The firecat only stared quizzically in return, then bowed under a quick petting on the head. "Hm...keep an eye out for anything, ne?" Kirara promptly turned tails and headed back to the spring's entrance, stoically taking up post there as Sango slipped herself into the hot water.   
Steam rose up around her face, clouding slightly in the cool morning air. Water lapped around her shoulders as she slid in, ducking under momentarily to saturate her hair. It clung to her face, and she took the shampoo from the pool's rocky ledge, opening the lid and squeezing a bit into her palm. The scent of peaches wafted upward, and she rubbed it into her hair, using her nails to turn it into a lather. There, in the quiet, it was easy to slip away, to luxuriate in the warmth, and feel the mist rise from the water's surface. And, relaxing, she drifted on the edge of the water, eyes half closing as she sunk down, letting her arms drift outward and float.   
It was a strange place, the old mansion that sat upon the hill, overlooking the river. Youkai, or no youkai? Something that attacked, and yet could not be sensed. An evil aura? Mononoke? Yurei? A ghost? Perhaps, she wondered idly, frowning as she flipped through possibilities in her mind. She supposed that was the most likely thing. A youkai that attacked through sleep? It was puzzling. But she was sure Miroku's ofuda would seal away the most dangerous areas, and if its power revolved around dreaming, then she would simply stay awake. Could a ghost use the shikon no kakera? Sango bit her lip, watching the long strands of her hair curl around her on the waves of water. White, foamy soap drifted away on a suddenly frosty breeze, and she ducked under the heated water to warm and rinse.   
She did not escape the cold.   
It pressed against her skin, making it prickle, and causing Sango to open her eyes underwater in alarm. She saw her hands float in the darkness, wheeling upward, pale and white against the submerged blackness. Then the heat overwhelmed, pounding against her temples, dizzying. She broke the surface, gasping, steam clouding around her as her vision narrowed, spinning the world into a kaleidoscope of color. Fighting the urge to panic, she saw, through the distance of tunnel vision, the lip of rock she used to enter the spring. The sound of water broke wildly around her as she tried to reach for the relative safety outside. She felt the surface of the stone, and felt her fingers slip on the wet rock.   
Silence.   
  
  
  


***************************************** 

Ever notice there's always a hot spring somewhere?   
I thought I'd follow the trend.   
Yup, another cliffhanger. What will Sango's dream be...? Tune in next time, same sengoku jidai time, same sengoku jidai place.   
We're caught up now to where the prologue was...if you didn't notice, a page or so repeated itself, and left with Sango instead of staying with Inuyasha and Kagome like it did in the prologue.   
And you'll find out more about the little girl Shippou saw in the next chapter. ^.~   
I thought I'd mention this too...I love listening to music when I write. Soundtracks for fics always add something, letting some music flow into the storyline. For '_Kami Monogatari_', I listened to several cd's, but predominantly the soundtrack to '_The Lord of the Rings._' If you have it, pop it in and let it be the background. If you happen to have the Mediaeval Baebes' album '_Undrentide_'...that'll work too.   
Terms of note:   
Daijobu ka?- Are you all right?   
Daijobu- I'm all right.   
Yurei- a ghost 

Nope, not much by way of notes this time. ^.~   
Til next chapter.   
Ja ne!   
-Queen 


	4. Lavender Eyes, Pale Like The Sky

Terms of note:   
Shinu- die   
Itai!- Ow   
Onee-chan- sister   
Yukata- a lighter, summer kimono   
Hakama- loose fitting pants   
Hotaru- fireflies   
Kemari- kickball   
  
  
  


Kami Monogatari   
  
  


_It is as perilous to one's soul to deny the Shadow in one as it is to deny the Light._   
_Live in the Light, by all means, but do not lose your shadow-vision._   
_Do not forget how to see in the Dark._   
_-The Hedge of Mist_   
_ Patricia Kennealy-Morrison_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Chapter 3- Lavender Eyes, Pale Like the Sky   
  
  


The world was burning.   
Sulfuric stench wafted through the air, making her senses sting with the scent. Her face was wet, and she lifted a hand to her cheek, touching it. Cracking her eyes open, she saw her fingers, tipped red with blood. Moving caused dizziness, sending her spiraling back down into darkness. Sango struggled against the oncoming blackness, focusing on the small expanse of ground between her hands. Pebbles and bits of scraggly grass scratched her palms, already raw. Eyes watering from the sulfuric tang in the air, she rubbed them, looking around, searching for a familiar face.   
It was cold where smoke did not warm her. Black clouds drifted through the blank space around her, trees veiling her location. "Minna!" she tried to call, voice thick, affected by her injury. "Kagome? Houshi-sama! Inuyasha!" Leaves whispered darkly in the timeless space, the bloody color of the sky revealing it to be neither dawn nor sunset. She stood, pushing herself upward and staggering a bit, a lance of pain in her head shocking her. "Calm...be calm...head injury...." she stumbled forward a step, towards the origin of the smoke, then leaned a moment against a tree as the world spun again. She closed her eyes, trying to run through her memories, sort them out. "Fighting. We've been fighting. I'm hurt? How did I get hurt? Where?"   
A chill wind caught at the loose ends of her hair, sending them into the wind. The sound of breaking lifted her head, and she watched trees crumble down through the foliage, buckling in on themselves as miasma spread through the forest floor. The danger registered, and she backed away, stumbling out of the way of the dark stream.   
The green world was turning into a white one, pale and dizzying as she heard an explosion behind her, and looked to see fire burning along the treetops.   
"Shinu."   
Die.   
She turned, leaping to the side on instinct. A silver disc sliced through the air where she stood, whistling until it embedded into a tree trunk. She fought the tide of dizziness, eyes focusing on the small scythe, tracing the links of chain attached to it, finding the hand that held the end, and the face of the thrower, half hidden behind a mask.   
"Kohaku!"   
He moved, yanking the chain and summoning the sickle back into his hand, poising for another throw. Eyes that were pale, white and ghostly in their emptiness, stared emptily back at her. His expression was unreadable, hidden behind the mask of the youkai exterminator. She pushed herself away from the tree, feeling the world reel around her. Kohaku. He was there. He was attacking her. Again, the silver disc spun through the air, cutting so close she stumbled backward to avoid it, collapsing backward and landing hard on her arm. Droplets of blood flicked onto the ground from over her eye, evidence of the scalp wound.   
"Kohaku! No! It's Sango...Kohaku...."   
The white eyes shifted their focus, inward, outward. Darkness settled around them, touched red by the wildfire in the forest. It was a dangerous place, with claustrophobic trees and heavy underbrush pressing around them. Ashes floated through the air, pungently declaring the presence of the wood that burned. With a tug, the blade returned to his hand, settling there with a smack.   
"Kohaku...remember...please, Kohaku! Naraku has you under his control. You can break out of it..." she pleaded, hands open, palm upward. He hesitated, and she took a step forward, encouraged. "I'm your sister...remember? Kohaku? Remember, we used to practice throwing that weapon? Kohaku?"   
Milky white, stained with ashes, the eyes gained color, faded, whitened, colored, focusing and unfocusing in a liquid lens. He remained ready for attack, flinching back as she moved forward again, edging into the brush. An expression of pain washed his face, uncertainty clouding his features.   
Red flames bloomed in the forest around them. "Onee-chan?" the eyes turned to see her, brown and familiar, confused. Streams of fire lit around the ground, catching on dry grass. But the moment passed, and the brown again became bleached white. "Shinu!"   
The shock hit her, seeing the eyes change color. In the dizzy world, her mind spun, reeling in rejection. So close, so close, so far. He moved forward, too close to throw, the sickle upraised and ready for cutting. The blood flowed into her eye, turning the world dark and unfocused. The blade seemed so close, so bright in the firelight.   
And it never fell....   
She turned her face upward, watching her little brother collapse, eyes turning brown and rolling upward into his head as he sunk to the ground. Sango lifted her arms, catching him as he fell, limp, the scythe slipping from his fingers, falling with a dull thud against the ground. He remained still.   
"Sango?" It fell hard against her ears, the voice that hovered above her. Looking up, she saw Miroku, holding a glowing shikon no kakera in his hand. "It's dangerous here," he told her coolly, looking down at her. "Leave him. Let's go."   
Her hands tightened on Kohaku's back, tentatively touching where no shard was planted. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then turned them, furious, on the man standing above her. Smoke welled up around her, stinging her eyes and making them water. Just like that. Collapse. It hurt, burning, scalding, the sensation of fire smacking her painfully, stinging the darkness that swirled up around her, choking her and filling her lungs with darkness.   
  
  


"Sango!"   
"Sango!"   
"Sango, wake up...."   
"Sango!"   
"There's nothing fucking here, dammit!"   
"Sango!"   
The words drifted on the edge of her vision, echoing through the recesses of her mind. She felt the wetness of the blood on her face, and the burning of the fire.   
"Sango!"   
So tired. She was so tired. Kohaku and blank eyes. Blood. Fire. So tired....   
"Sango, you have to wake up!"   
That voice....   
"Sango!"   
Her eyes opened slightly, and saw the blurry outlines of figures over her. Slowly, she reached through the lake of nightmare, world focusing as she drew slowly to its surface. The first face solidified, violet eyes peering down at her. Her reaction was instantaneous. She slapped him as hard as she could.   
"Itai! Sango, I didn't...."   
The words died away before he could say any more. Having released her, she gave him such a look of exhausted loathing he backed away, mouth slightly open at the strangeness of it. "Get..._away_...from me."   
He edged away on the ground, tentatively touching the fresh handprint on his face, which stung. She lay on the ground, forearms supporting her up, glaring and laboriously trying to catch her breath.   
"Miroku-sama...Inuyasha...." Kagome made a quick gesture, suggesting they leave.   
"But I didn't...." he began to protest, then silenced himself.   
Inuyasha sheathed the transformed Tetsusiaga, and looked down at the still slightly stunned Miroku. It wasn't so much the slap- he'd endured that enough before- but the dark look she was giving him. It was unnerving, being on the receiving end of the glare. "Come on, Miroku. Let Sango get cleaned up."   
Recovering a bit, Miroku stood, trying to decide what he could have possibly done this time. Having broken the disturbing gaze, Sango's head remained bent, wet hair veiling her current expression. Two red drops of blood fell to the ground, trailing from a cut on her forehead. He backed away and followed Inuyasha as the hanyou headed out.   
Sango heard the falls of their footsteps, fading as the distance grew. She heard Kagome move, and moments later she felt something warm settle around her shoulders. "Just your yukata, Sango...daijobu ka?"   
Fire. Blood. Kohaku. Shards. Miroku. Miroku, like he didn't even care. Killed him. Killed Kohaku. Took the shard, just like that. Fire. White eyes. They spun dizzily around her, the world tilting and shifting in a delirium.   
"I don't feel so good..."   
"Daijobu...do you need to throw up...?"   
"No...dizzy...sleepy...." her eyes lowered, and she began to slide to the ground.   
"Sango, no, don't sleep! Stay awake!" Kagome grabbed her shoulders, shaking her a bit to keep her eyes open. "Kirara!" she called, and the little firecat stepped forward a bit, then took the initiave and changed in a burst of fire. "Sango, Kirara pulled you out," she explained. "Came and got us. Can you tell me what happened?"   
Happened? What happened? Kohaku. Shikon no kakera, Miroku. Eyes the color of clouds, pale and sightless. He'd been right there. She'd gotten through to him. She'd gotten through to him...then....   
"Kohaku...Miroku...shikon no kakera...."   
"Miroku?" Kagome blinked, and took one of Sango's arms, wrapping it around her neck from behind to help her. But now was not the time to question Sango's name choice. The taiji-ya leaned heavily against Kagome, and Kirara pushed her head forward, bowing slightly so Kagome could push Sango onto her back. "Stay awake a little longer, Sango. We'll get you somewhere safe...you can sleep then."   
"Un..." she mumbled. "Eyes...white eyes...."   
"White eyes?"   
Sango's lashes fell against her cheeks, and she leaned against Kirara's neck, adrift on the edge of a sleep without dreams.   
  


He peered around the corner, then stepped around, seeing nothing. The morning was passing by, and still Shippou found no trace of the girl he had seen the previous night. Returning to where he had last seen her, he looked around, searching for signs of footprints. There were none. It was creepy, and he was tempted to go find Inuyasha. But the hanyou would probably tell him he was imagining things because he was scared, with no proof, and just wasting his damn time. Finding mysterious little girls was not as important as finding the shikon no kakera that were around here somewhere. Shippou disagreed, but didn't really know why. It was too odd not to investigate, and he didn't think he'd be able to help too much in the hunt anyway. So, he set himself to his own search.   
"Mou..." he grumbled, kicking a rock. He had seen Kagome a little earlier, and waved as she went off in search of Inuyasha. This wasn't doing him any good. So, when he saw Kagan in an old pair of worn hakama, a bucket and small hand shovel in hand, he decided to follow him. It was daily work for the older man, tending to the gardens, and Shippou tailed him outside, until he found the paths separating, one flowing down towards the river they followed the previous day. The skin on the back of his neck prickled, thinking of the fireflies that drifted around her. _Hotaru _were attracted to water, coming out to the wetlands and to the edges of forest to dance in the darkness. Well, he decided, if he didn't stray too far from the path, he should be able to find his way back to the old man in awhile, if his hunch didn't pay off.   
The trees lightened, the green canopy drawing back as the river came into fuller view, sparkling brightly in calm reassurance. From the earlier day's rains, it had calmed again, leaving a layer of rich black silt on the riversides. A delicate willow tree graced the bank, long trails falling into the water, stirring tiny ripples in the glassy surface. Shippou looked around with amazement. Everything was beautiful, elegant and graceful, the image of a floating world, reflected in the calm blue water.   
It wasn't a gasp that made him turn, but a slight intake of breath, as though startled. His case of nerves returned, having been lost in the quiet place, making him jump backwards in alarm. Then he tried to force himself to calm, still shaking a bit. He could see the hem of skirts half hidden behind the willow's trunk, and saw them stir. He'd found what he was looking for, and now that it was before him, he wasn't sure if he liked the fact he was alone. "Ko...konichiwa?" he called, telling himself not to panic.   
The fabric stirred, and after a hesitant moment, a narrow half of face emerged, peering around its hiding place shyly. "Konichiwa?" she returned, emerging a bit more as she greeted him. Seeing the little kitsune across from her, she emerged fully, lightly pushing aside one of the willow fronds in her way. "Are you new here?" she asked, blushing slightly and tightening her grip on her ball, raising it partway to her face, as though to hide.   
"Uh...yeah...." Shippou agreed, watching her suspiciously. Her disappearance from sight last night was disturbing, though at the moment there didn't seem to be anything unusual about her. She smelled faintly of rain and chrysanthemums, fresh and sweet, though the sun struck her white skin oddly, giving it a softly glowing quality. But most striking were her eyes, large and framed by heavy lashes, pale, lavender, and currently curious now that he had confirmed her suspicion. A smile broke out on her face, erasing the slight timidity, and it had a calming effect on Shippou. Smiling was hardly a sign of danger.   
"Sugoi ne," she laughed lightly, beaming at him and bowing politely as she introduced herself. "Watashi wa, Ukifune."   
"Shippou," he returned, relaxing further at the continued smile. She held up the deerskin ball a bit, questioning.   
"There aren't any children here. Would you like to play kemari with me, Shippou-kun? The adults are always so busy!" Then she caught herself, as though in outburst. "Gomen," she whispered, more softly. "Loud voices are not so ladylike," she told him, then giggled a little, shyly hiding her face behind the ball again. "But then neither is sneaking out to play, ne?"   
Sneaking out to play? He grinned back. Playing tricks on adults could be fun. And he knew there weren't any children there. The place was empty. He wasn't sure why Ukifune had stayed, but maybe she had hidden when her family had left, out of fear of the mononoke in the mansion. It didn't make much sense, he knew. It was unlikely for a girl to stay when her family left, but she seemed perfectly harmless, though maybe a little strange.   
"Sure," he agreed, and she laughed again, a light, delicate sound, accompanied by her slowly and formally tossing the ball into the air as was proper. He ran back a couple steps, moving under the ball and kicking it neatly back into the air.   
"Sugoi!" Ukifune clapped her hands with delight, then rushed out as the ball returned. She backed up, back into the arms of willow, the ball tangling inside the branches above and thrown off course. It splashed into the river, the ball floating idly out of reach. Ukifune rushed to the edge of the water, and stopped on the ledge, watching her ball slowly drift away. "Mou...."   
"I can get it," Shippou offered, and moved to take a leaf out of his jacket, planning on popping into his pink balloon form. It'd be easy to float over the water, pick it up, and come back.   
"No!" Ukifune cried, reaching out to stop him. "No! Don't go into the water, Shippou-kun!"   
He paused, confused. "Huh?"   
Ukifune had already turned away, and seemed to close in on herself, lifting her hands to her mouth, covering it with her long sleeves. She watched her ball float away, and Shippou looked at her again, seeing her outline against the sky. The whiteness of her skin had increased, and she looked so pale she was ethereal, her eyes haunted, elegiac beauty. He backed away a step, uncertain again. He caught a glimpse of her reflection on the water, and leapt back.   
The water was unmoving there, the reflection a night of fireflies, glowing. The childlike form of Ukifune grew, an elegant figure in ancient robes, lavender and long, the white fading into deeper shades of purple as the sleeves reached over her folded hands. No ribbons adorned her, but rather an intricate looping behind her head, holding back some of a long, wavy wealth of hair. And her pale, lavender eyes reflected sorrow.   
"Yu...yurei..." Shippou stammered, backing away. Reflecting an image that was one's own, but not one's own. That was no trick of the light, no illusion.   
"_From the water comes reflection,_" she said softly, in a voice far older than that of a little girl. "_And broken dreams are all you can see._"   
But Shippou was already running away.   
  


"You know, that's the second time Sango's almost drowned and ended up slapping you instead, Miroku," Inuyasha commented as he turned around, leaning against the half wall behind him. The sarcastic tone earned him a dirty look from Miroku, who still sported a faint pink handprint on his cheek.   
"And both times, a misunderstanding." Miroku defended himself, frowning. Each time he's had perfectly good intentions after all, not lecherous in the least. "I hardly think she-"   
His words were cut off as the shoji slid open quietly, and Kagome emerged, shutting it with a soft click behind her. "She's resting," Kagome told them, stepping away from the door and keeping her voice low.   
"How is she?"   
Kagome shook her head, holding her hand to her mouth in a nervous gesture, slightly uncertain. "Exhausted. She needs sleep...it's like she's been drained. It's weird."   
"You didn't fall over like that," Inuyasha noticed, sending a glance behind Kagome, who had pulled out her portion of the tama, cupping it in her hands and watching it glow, the colors shifting faintly in the dimness.   
"The nightmare seems real," she countered, closing her fist around the necklace. "Really real. She was mumbling about Kohaku and shikon no kakera. Whatever youkai is sending-"   
"There's no damn youkai!" Inuyasha shouted, since he had said this several times through the course of the last day, and it seemed like nobody wanted to believe him. "It's not youkai! We'd know by now if it was!"   
"Inuyasha!" Kagome whispered sharply, brows drawing down in irritation. "Let Sango sleep."   
"Feh. She was so out of it, I doubt she'd wake up anyway."   
"Osuwari."   
Splat.   
"Bitch...."   
"Be nice, then."   
Miroku sighed, shaking his head as the other two exchanged glares. "Inuyasha. If it's not youkai, then what is it?"   
"Hell if I know," he muttered, peeling himself up from the wooden floor. "But it waited 'til she was alone, didn't it?"   
"Alone?" Kagome's head snapped up, eyes widening as she realized they were missing a member of the group. She grabbed at his sleeve. "Inuyasha, where's Shippou?"   
The other two froze at the statement, and then began to move as Kagome pushed past, heading out through the narrow hallways. As the courtyard opened up before them beyond the verandah, they saw Shippou tearing his way across the ground as though Naraku were hot on his heels.   
"Waaaaah! Inuyasha! Kagome!" On the second name, he launched himself upward, latching onto Kagome's neck. "Kagome! A yurei! I saw a yurei!"   
"A ghost?"   
"Hai!"   
"Kuso..." Inuyasha muttered, looking around warily and placing a hand on Tetsusiaga. "Did it follow you?"   
Shippou poked his head out from Kagome's shoulder, twisting around to see the hanyou. "Don't think so."   
"Then what the hell are you panicking about?"   
"You try finding out the person you were playing kemari with was dead and see how you like it!" Shippou shouted back, fists clenched. "She had a scent! How was I supposed to know she was dead? I don't see dead people all the time, you know!"   
"She, Shippou-chan?" Kagome asked, looking down. "And kemari? How old was this ghost?"   
"Just a kid. Sorta. It was weird. She was by herself, so I said yeah, I'd play with her, and then the ball went into the water, she got all worked up, and her reflection was her, but she wasn't little anymore. So I ran off because that's damn freaky!" he finished in a rush of breath, folding his arms and looking annoyed, since he realized he would have been able to find out more had he not run off, and that the others were giving him odd looks. "She was just a kid," he repeated, as though they didn't believe him.   
"Like Mayu-chan...." Kagome said, considering.   
"Mayu-chan?" Miroku asked, backing into the mansion's hallways again. He glanced at the roofbeams, where he had placed ofuda the previous night. "It should be safe enough in here, from yurei."   
Kagome nodded once, climbing up the small set of steps. "Mayu was a little girl who died in a fire, in my world. Before we met you," she added after a moment. "But Mayu was upset about her mother, and she was trying to hurt people. Did she hurt you, Shippou-chan? Is that why you..." she trailed off, realizing Shippou was looking embarrassed. "Gomen ne. She didn't, did she? You just got scared."   
"I don't see dead people all the time. And she did have a scent," he muttered darkly, folding his arms and looking stubborn. "How was I supposed to know?"   
"Daijobu, Shippou-chan," Kagome told him, then turned to the others. "If this little girl is behind these attacks, then we need to find out why."   
"I've said it before, and I'll say it again," Inuyasha told them as he climbed the steps. "Ghosts aren't like youkai. You can't just knock them around to defeat them."   
"I remember," Kagome replied. "And we still were able to help Mayu. Maybe she's not going after the shikon no kakera at all."   
"Then why attack us in the first place?" Miroku mused, heading back the way they came, towards the girls rooms. "Sango's not in good shape, but she left Shippou alone? The same for Yanagi and Kagan, but then attacking the rest of the people who lived here? There's no pattern to this at all. It's erratic."   
"Well, whatever happens, we don't go wandering off on our own anymore," Inuyasha decided, almost with a growl as he followed the others. "That ghost kid-"   
"Mayu!" Kagome insisted, frowning at Inuyasha's word choice.   
"Mayu-" he corrected himself, ignoring Kagome's glare, "caused a hell of a lot of trouble, and almost got you killed. This yurei-"   
"Ukifune," Shippou supplied, earning an odd look from Kagome. But Inuyasha was still continuing, not paying much attention to the kitsune as they passed through the hallway, and emerged again into the skylight outside their rooms. One of the streams ran underneath the floorboards, and in attempt and architectural grace, a square had been cut from it, and a skylight from the roof, so that when one stepped out of their room, daylight or moonlight filled the hallway enough to see by, or one could look down and see the water below, drifting idly by. Miroku was again checking the ofuda he had posted the previous night, this time around their doors.   
"This yurei has targeted us, and the last thing we need is for some baka to go get themselves killed. Sango didn't say anything about how she got attacked, did she?" Kagome shook her head, trying not to smile. He was trying to sound tough again, trying to hide the fact he was worried. She had seen his expression, after she had been attacked. He also knew he hadn't been able to help when Mayu had nearly allowed herself to fall into hell. Until there was something solid for him to attack, he was at a loss. But still continuing, "And there's a shikon no kakera here somewhere. Nobody goes off alone until we figure out what the hell is going on." He paused, then his eyes narrowed at Miroku's back. "Oy, bouzu! You hear me?"   
"Hai," came the response, and the houshi turned slightly, opening the shoji a crack to see Sango sleeping soundly on the futon, her dark hair clinging damply to the light cover. Kirara lifted her head at the slight noise, and seeing only Miroku, she lowered it again. He slid the door to a close. "But with Sango out, I'm not sure who you expect me to search with, since I assume you will remain with Kagome-sama."   
"Take Shippou with you," Inuyasha growled, and he saw the kitsune gulp nervously. "If nothing else, he can come get us."   
"Hey!"   
"That's what you just did, isn't it?"   
Shippou scowled.   
  
  
  
  


***************************************** 

More notes this time!   
I mentioned a the novel '_The Tale of Genji_' before...and it's cropping up again in this chapter. I took the name 'Ukifune' from some of the final chapters of the book, and applied the name here. I tried looking up the name Ukifune in Japanese dictionaries, and nothing came up, so I split it in half and tried the two parts separately. 'Uki' came up as 'rain, or rainy season' and 'fune' as 'ship, boat or watercraft.' So it should mean something along the lines of 'A boat in the rain.' Yes, she is a yurei, a ghost. In the previous chapter, I had fireflies surrounding her...there's folklore about 'hotaru'-fireflies- that they contain the souls of the dead. So if you see any...think of ghosts. ^.~   
The game Ukifune is playing is called 'kemari' and is basically a form of Japanese kickball. It was very popular in the Heian era, but wasn't much of a girls game. Remember way back in the earlier Inuyasha episodes, with Muuonna? (Those weird, psychoanalytic episodes with his fake mother? o.O;) There was a scene in which little Inuyasha was chasing a ball that some men were kicking around. Basically, I had two reactions to that scene. 1. Aw, poor chibi-Inuyasha! and 2. Oh my god, they're playing kemari!! It looks kinda like hackey-sack to me...you keep kicking the ball around.   
Ja ne!   
-Queen 


	5. Where The Fearing Dwells

Terms of note:   
Amida- Amida Buddha, Buddha of Paradise   
Tabi- split toed socks   
Onna- woman   
  
  
  
  


Kami Monogatari   
  
  
  


_No more will you wander the green fields of this earth_   
_Your journey has ended in darkness._   
_The bonds cut, the spirit broken_   
_A great light has gone out._   
_-from 'Lament for Gandalf'_   
_Lord of the Rings Soundtrack_

  
  
  
  
  
  


Chapter 4- Where The Fearing Dwells   
  
  


Kagome tried not to laugh at Inuyasha, but his idea of searching this way seemed to be more akin to childish petulance rather than a determined hunt. At the moment, the hanyou was kicking a large rock in irritation, their most recent quest bringing little results. It wasn't that she blamed him. Wandering around pointlessly was frustrating, and kicking rocks was the least of the things Inuyasha could be doing to vent that frustration. Of course, stubbing his foot and hopping around, trying to hide it the whole time, was pretty darn funny; if Kagome did say so herself.   
The sun had risen high now, heralding a brilliant day of brightness. And yet, far to the west there were faintly grey clouds, barely tinged with the future of rain. But now the wind was clear of rain scent, briskly rushing along the stream's surface and making the water flow rapidly in its course. Her shoes landed heavily against the wooden planks of a bridge, sounding hollowly until she stepped off, resting a hand on the smooth bannister and looking for the familiar glow of a shard. Though perhaps, she wondered, if it would be better seen at night, when sunlight did not wash away the glow.   
Sango had collapsed. It bothered her. The taiji-ya was usually so strong. Of course, this was a different kind of attack, she supposed. She seemed well enough physically; a scratch to the forehead, but no bruises, no burns, no welts. No evidence of attack, or than her slip against the rocks, and that did correlate to what had happened to her last night. But why such exhaustion? That did not match her experience at all. What was different? Kagome bit her lip as she turned around, trailing after Inuyasha, who was heading towards one of the damaged areas along the streambed. Without more free hands to help move the rubble, Kagan and Yanagi were left with patches of broken wall and torn shoji, black shingles laying atop the wood and paper. They were lucky not to have had any fires.   
"If this happened after the shard got here, then it could even be underneath," he was saying, picking up one of the larger chunks of rooftop and swinging it around to toss aside.   
Kagome warned him before he managed to throw it, "Inuyasha, if you're going to start cleaning it up, don't make a bigger mess of it."   
"I'm not a slob," he snapped, but set the wood and shingles aside without throwing. "See anything?"   
She shook her head, moving to kneel down and push aside a battered door. "What could have caused this?"   
Inuyasha considered that a moment, looking at the size and angle of the destruction that had torn in through here. The edges of the room had been torn open by something fairly sharp, since the wood was sliced cleanly, not snapped and ragged, though paper, freed of its constraints, flapped idly in the breeze. But that could mean any number of things. "Something big. What I'd really like to know is what drove it off." He bent his head a bit lower, sniffing for a scent. It smelled only of rain, washed away in recent weather.   
Standing, Kagome lost her balance on the uneven mess, wobbling and flinging her arms out to stay upright. Pebbles, loosened, rolled into the water with a series of tiny splashes, and she felt a hand grab her arm tightly. "Don't you go try to get drowned too," Inuyasha warned her with a frown. Kagome batted his hand away, scolding lightly.   
"I can swim just fine, Inuyasha. And besides, I don't think I'd drown in that shallow of water." Stepping carefully over a wooden post, she stumbled again, straightening herself out before he could make another comment. "Graceful. Graceful...." she tried to laugh, but he simply sniffed and turned back to the destruction. She glanced at her hands, seeing dirt embedded into her palms, and then checked her legs, ribboned with bits of damp earth, which had clung to the wooden frames, carried there by the rain. "Mou..." she hated being dirty, particularly her hands. It made them feel gritty and slimy, so she bent at the stream's edge, pushing her sleeves back carefully. Noises sounded behind her as Inuyasha continued to shift rubble aside, and she dipped her hands into the cool water.   
Her reflection peered back at her, uneven and shifting in the clear liquid, the sky above her distant and blue. Hands still under the surface, she turned them over, watching the specks of dirt get carried off by the flow, moving away under the rubble. She turned her head, hair falling to the side as she traced the path of the creek back across the wide courtyard. The rivulets all merged in the center, where a wide pond was carved, forming a single, larger stream that presumably ran out into the river beyond the mansion. The water traced through the entire complex, giving it a floating quality in the reflection. Kagome felt herself slowly go white with a thought, and she pulled her hands out of the water, wiping them dry on her light blue skirt. The water. What if the shard was in the water? Her fists tightened, nails pressing into her palms as she thought about it. That may explain the oddly enveloping aura of the missing shard. But kami-sama, if it was in the water somewhere, that'd make it so difficult to find....   
"Kuso!"   
At the familiar sound of Inuyasha's pottymouth, quickly accompanied by a crash, Kagome turned to see Inuyasha end up sending a section of the damage collapsing in on itself as he leapt away.   
"Graceful, Inuyasha," she told him as she stood, shaking out the last drops of water from her fingertips.   
"Feh!" he snarled, getting ready to kick the nearest wooden beam. But he stopped, looking at her instead. "Anything?"   
"No..." she began, reluctant to share her thought. They didn't know for sure yet...it could be anywhere, and there was really no point in getting Inuyasha angrier than he was now. "No," she continued more firmly. "It's the same as everywhere else."   
"Heh. Then let's move on. No point just standing around."   
They turned, Kagome somewhat reluctantly, but then heard a light voice call out, "Kagome! Inuyasha!"   
Lifting their heads, they saw Yanagi, a large but nearly empty bushel of clothes on her hip, standing in the shade of the verandah, a hand raised in greeting. The older woman shielded her eyes from the sunlight that dappled her soft face, eyes squinting slightly as she focused on the two. "Ara, Kagome, what happened to you?"   
"Eh?" Kagome glanced at herself again. Sitting on the damp rubble had not only placed traceries of dirt on her legs, but on her skirt a bit as well. Her socks, already muddy from the day before, were even worse, sagging around her ankles. "Ah, well," she tugged at the fallen stockings, "just a little dirt. Um, we're still looking for the shards, Yanagi-san."   
"Hai," the older woman agreed, tilting her head to the side in thought. "Ah, well, those clothes of yours," she looked down, then glanced up, obviously not wishing insult. "Perhaps something...more?"   
"More?" Kagome blinked, then realized what Yanagi was hinting at. Inuyasha was simply standing there, frowning, looking between the two females and trying to figure out the subtext of the conversation. Kagome though, was continuing, "Do you have something?"   
"I think so. Reiko left in a hurry, and she was fairly close."   
"What the hell are you two blabbering about?" Inuyasha finally asked, irritated into exasperation. "Fairly close to what?"   
Kagome began to walk forward, smiling and joining Yanagi on the porch. "Keep looking, Inuyasha. I'll be back soon. Yanagi's just going to get me a change of clothes. These are getting kinda dirty."   
"We'll, ah," Yanagi said, skeptically looking at the rather short skirt Kagome was in, "put it in with the rest of the laundry, ne?" She hefted the bushel meaningfully, the clothes rustling at their displacement.   
"Hai, arigatou," Kagome thanked her.   
"Oy! You're just going to-"   
"I'll be back in five minutes. Ten, tops, Inuyasha. Calm down a bit, and we'll start again."   
"You can't just go-"   
"Osu-"   
Hastily, Inuyasha quickly snapped, "Fine! Go get some damn clothes! Just don't sit me again, will you? Feh!" With that, he turned and stormed off, irritated at the interruption.   
"Temperamental, isn't he?" Yanagi commented, eyes a bit wide as she drew deeper into the shadows of the porch.   
Kagome sighed, following her down a hallway. "He's very centered on his search. You get used to it, after awhile." Her eyes softened a bit before Inuyasha disappeared out of sight.   
"I see," Yanagi murmured gently, watching Kagome's face before turning into a section of the mansion Kagome was unfamiliar with. Most of their wanderings were outside, or between the rooms. Here was a newer section of the mansion, the walls brighter, and with a few screens open to allow in air. "Reiko was a friend of mine," Yanagi began quietly as she slid a door open, allowing Kagome to step inside first. "About your size, I'd say." She set the bushel down and went to a smooth wooden trunk in the room's corner. The tatami were worn, pressed in by many feet over time. People had lived in this room, and dust was now settling into the corners. The room was shuttered and fairly empty, save for a small dresser, a silk screen as a divider in the room, and the trunk Yanagi knelt beside. "Reiko's son...fell very ill." She said quietly, pushing aside clothing in the trunk. "She had to leave quickly. I believe she left most of her things here."   
"I don't want to impose-"   
"Bah," Yanagi waved Kagome off, drawing out a kimono of deep blue. "She wouldn't mind. Actually, she'd be more likely to foist it on you, seeing that skirt. Very proper, Reiko."   
"Eh..." Kagome managed nervously, hanging her head and tugging at the hem of her skirt. "It's a normal outfit where I'm from...."   
Yanagi chuckled a bit, handing the dress over to Kagome, and pointing at the silk screen. "Toss your clothes over the top, I'll add them to the washing pile." Kagome obeyed, and as she disappeared behind the screen, Yanagi picked up where Kagome had stopped talking. "I see," she smiled, then turned back to the trunk and began to straighten it out again, folding cloth. "So I figured. You don't act as though it is strange, nor do your companions. Where are you from, ne?"   
"Tokyo?" Kagome replied, chucking her blouse and muddy socks over the screen's top. It was a question, not a statement. Kaede-baa-chan had not known of the place. Of course, the more Kagome thought about it, Tokyo shouldn't be called 'Tokyo' yet. Should still be Edo. But it was confusing anyway. How large was Edo in the sengoku jidai? She sighed and waited for Yanagi's answer.   
"Strange," Yanagi mused, shutting the trunk and standing, knees crackling a bit with age. "Is that far?"   
"Very," Kagome told her as she folded her kimono closed, left over right as was proper. She took the sash for her waist, tying it together and emerging from behind the screens. Yanagi had a good eye, and the deep blue fitted Kagome well, falling straight and smooth over her hips and back. It was only slightly large, the sleeves of the yukata baggier than necessary, evidence of Reiko's slightly greater weight. The sapphire shades grew into sky blue around her neck, touched lightly with the faint embroidery of tiny white flowers. "The obi's so narrow," Kagome murmured softly, running a hand over the tying sash, now in a loose bow.   
"Nani?" Yanagi asked, not quite hearing Kagome's last words.   
"Nothing, nothing," Kagome smiled, trying to distract the older woman. "Arigatou, Yanagi-san."   
"It's all right. You'll need tabi and sandals to wear that. I'll see what I can find." Yanagi hesitated thoughtfully, then her lips curved into a faint smile. "Ah, sit down. Here," she gestured at the tiny dresser, moving to open a drawer, then another. "Ah! Here. Reiko was always so stylish, I knew she'd have plenty. One had to be left." Yanagi held up a narrow blue ribbon, gesturing again for Kagome to sit as she rummaged a bit more, this time drawing out a wide toothed comb.   
Kagome knelt, settling herself, not really sure what Yanagi was planning. After a moment, the older woman knelt behind Kagome, pulling her hair back, combing it lightly. "Here. You don't mind?"   
She looked at Yanagi through the mirror, giving her a puzzled look. "No. Inuyasha might come looking though, to see why we're taking so long."   
"Humph. Sounds like Kagan when he's grumpy. 'Onna, what's taking so long? Onna, where's my dinner? Onna, where do you think you're going?' Old fart."   
The last comment made Kagome stifle a giggle. The 'Where you you think you're going?' definitely did sound familiar. "Hai," she said as Yanagi pulled on her hair, bringing it up on top of her head.   
"Rather close to the Inuyasha one, ne?" Yanagi asked, so casually that Kagome stopped smiling and looked at her reflection in the mirror. The woman had her eyes focused entirely on her hair, deliberately not looking Kagome in the eye.   
Cautiously, Kagome asked, "Why?"   
Yanagi shrugged and began to bring Kagome's hair into a coil. "He is hanyou, is he not?"   
Kagome's mood began to sour, hoping Yanagi wasn't going to make rude comments. That she had not expected from the older woman, though perhaps she should not have assumed. And so she began to quiet herself, lowering her eyes and paying attention to her hands, folded in her lap. "Hai."   
"Mm," Yanagi murmured, bringing Kagome's hair into a single loop, then tying it with the blue ribbon, fastening it upon itself with a little bow, which she tucked into the underside of her hair.   
"He's saved me several times," Kagome argued, feeling defensive on Inuyasha's behalf. "He may be a rude, potty mouthed, self centered-" Kagome broke off, realizing that Yanagi was laughing lightly, moving to look her in the face.   
"It's all right. Gomen nasai," she continued to chuckle, brown eyes warm as she shook her head, smoothing the folds of her green apron. "Such a spirited defense of one who is rude, potty mouthed and self centered!" Kagome blinked for a moment, folding her arms and looking down with embarrassment. When she looked up again, Yanagi's face had drawn to seriousness. "I do not know of this journey you are on, Kagome-chan. I do not know of how this hanyou has 'saved you,' or so you say. But I hear with the ears of an old woman, and so I worry like an old woman. Youkai are dangerous, and so I pass on that fear to the hanyou one. He spared my husband when he could have killed him." Yanagi's deep eyes were soft, but intent. Her slight aging did not stop her from being beautiful. "I only wonder at things I do not know. People fear what they do not understand. Forgive an old gossip for poking where she does not belong."   
"Hai," Kagome gave Yanagi a small smile, then turned to the mirror, touching her hair lightly. She looked so different, with her hair up in such a way. Almost as though this were her era, not the one on the other side of the well. Her hair, her clothes. A kimono. Always, always wearing clothing from home. Almost as though it linked her to where she came from. Putting _on _something else made her _feel _like someone else. Someone from the sengoku jidai. She shivered, disguising it by standing up. "Arigatou, Yanagi-san. It's okay. Trying to figure out something you're afraid of is better than just running away, or hating it thoughtlessly."   
"Mm," Yanagi agreed, placing a hand on the dresser for leverage as she pulled herself up. Though arthritis was just settling in, the motion was graceful, willowy. "Well, you'd better be getting back to your friend. If he is as bad as Kagan, he's probably on his way here by-"   
"Oy! Kagome!"   
"...now," Yanagi finished, sighing and laughing with exasperation as the door was flung open, revealing an annoyed looking Inuyasha. An annoyed looking Inuyasha whose eyes flew very wide when Kagome turned around, modeling clothes that were not the school uniform he was accustomed to. It only took him a second to get his mouth closed again, and fold his arms as though irritated at her tardiness.   
"You said five minutes. How're we supposed to find anything with you fiddling with your hair and shit all day long?"   
"Mou, Inuyasha," Kagome began, her hands turning into fists at her sides. "I was just about to-"   
"Ah, Inuyasha, doesn't Kagome-chan look pretty in blue?"   
Inuyasha blanched. "Uh...."   
Yanagi, old gossip or not, knew exactly how to tease a male. She used her age to full advantage in this case. After all, old people were supposed to babble about how pretty the younger generation was, weren't they? She clasped her hands together as though pleased. "Gomen, gomen, I shouldn't have kept her so long. Forgive an old lady's slowness. Go, find the shard things you say are causing trouble to my home." She shuffled over to her bushel in exaggerated age, hefting the laundry with a sigh.   
"Feh, a slow old lady who can't haul clothes around. Give me that thing," he said, grateful to get out of answering the question and grabbing it from Yanagi's grasp. "Where's your laundry? I'll never get any help if you two are moving that slow. Where is it?"   
"Ah, arigatou, Inuyasha," Yanagi thanked him politely. "Down the hall. I'll show you."   
"Wait, Inuyasha...." Kagome called, and he hesitated. Then she dumped her uniform on top of the pile. "Eh, gomen....almost forgot it."   
He rolled his eyes. "Feh."   
  


The world was beginning to dim, as the sun began to melt into the west, touching the land with dark red rays, setting the mansion aglow. Searching consumed the day, wandering and looking, eyes on the ground, peering through grasses, rubble or dust to see a small glowing fragment. It was beginning to feel hopeless, such a small glowing thing tucked away in such a big place. Somewhere.   
"I'd almost rather we were taking the shikon no kakera from a youkai of some kind," Miroku sighed, pausing for a moment to let Shippou catch up a few steps. "At least we'd know where it was. This is getting ridiculous."   
"Tell me about it," the kitsune muttered darkly, then yawned as he stretched, walking forward through shafts of red sunlight. The grass gave way to a footpath, smooth from usage, the edges decorated with lacy white flowers, shaded by tall maple trees, broad leaves casting shadows on the ground, rustling in the faint breeze. It was a garden they wandered in, well tended and with flowerbeds lining the walkway. Finishing his stretch, Shippou looked around, craning his neck back to get a better look at the tall trees above him. A leave loosened and drifted from its branch, fluttering away on the wind. "Sugoi...kirei!"   
"Yeah, well it better be," a gruff voice called, causing Shippou to jump. Miroku moved forward, leaning around a tall hedge of well trimmed shrubbery. Kagan was on his knees before a bed of lavender chrysanthemums, a pail of weeds beside him. "Been weeding the damn place all afternoon."   
Miroku looked around, taking in the garden. It was well kept, flowers closing for the night, blooms tightening, though their fragrance remained sweetly on the air. "So peaceful here," he commented quietly. It was peaceful, but something about the place made the skin on the back of his neck prickle. Not in coldness, but as though a current of energy pulsed there, faintly, warm like a star.   
Kagan squatted back on his knees, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, knocking a wide straw hat back from his head. Tied, it hung backwards off his neck until he removed it and plopped it next to the bucket of weeds. Sweat had created streams through the greaves of his face, smudges of soil around light brown eyes. "Yeah, plenty peaceful, houshi-sama."   
"We've been searching for signs of the shikon no kakera all day," he told the older man, walking forward to explore the garden a bit more. A reflective pool lay to the side, a willow draping long fronds into the water, where pale pink lotuses floated on green pads. He saw his reflection mirrored back at him, shifting on the water's surface. "You haven't come across anything odd here, have you?"   
"No. Same's always."   
Miroku lifted an eyebrow, returning to face Kagan. "You're here often then?"   
"Humph. All the damn time," came the response as Kagan picked up a light hand shovel, shoving it into the ground and easing another weed out from between blossoms. "Yanagi's always nagging me to keep this place up."   
"Why's that?" Miroku asked as he began to look around for any glowing spots of light, swishing the end of his staff through a ring of lilies, not to break them, but to see around them.   
Kagan, for his part, suddenly became very interested in the chrysanthemums, digging away as though the weeds were extremely important. "Yeah, well," he grumbled, wincing as he leaned forward a bit more. "I asked her to marry me over there," he jerked his chin at the willow by the water. "So she's all sentimental about it."   
The houshi gave the man's back a small, wry smile, looking around again. The smile faded as he realized Shippou had disappeared. "Shippou?"   
A pause. Then, from the other side of some shrubbery, "Oy! Miroku! Come and take a look at this!"   
Shippou was a few steps back from a tall cedar tree, branches forming a towering cage of leaves above three, black stone markers. The little kitsune was leaning forward and peering at the center one of these, slightly taller than the ones that winged its left and right. "Weird. What are they?"   
Bending down slightly and looking at the pillars, Miroku shrugged. "Gravestones."   
Shippou went a little pale, edging back a step. "G...gravestones? I...in a garden?"   
Nodding, Miroku knelt down before them, setting his staff beside him, ringing slightly. Though shaded, the sunset light was absorbed by the smooth stones, dark, gleaming shapes. Tiny chrysanthemums had sporadically broken their way though the surface of the soil around the black stone's base. "Don't worry, Shippou. The bodies would have been buried quite a way from here. By the age of these," he guessed thoughtfully, reaching out and running a hand over the edge of the one on the right, "I'd say these people have been in the land of the Amida for quite some time."   
"You'd be correct, houshi-sama," Kagan interrupted as he came to see what the other two were up to. His usually grumpy looking face shifted as he thought. "Yanagi knows more about it than me. But those should be the markers of the original family from here. Couple hundred years. Heian era."   
Miroku nodded, turning back to the narrow pillars of dark stone. He had chosen the smallest of the three for good reason. Of them, this one still bore carvings on it, retaining the name of the person it was built for. Centuries of rain and erosion had worn the symbols away. He ran a finger along the groove of the carving, bits of dirt falling to the ground at the disruption. Trying to make out the characters, he heard Shippou say, "But there's three. Didn't Yanagi say something about a wife, and a guy who worked in Kyoto? That's only two."   
The older man shrugged, pulling gardener's gloves off his hands and beating them against his hakama, puffs of dust rising from the cloth. "I think they had a kid. A girl...Yanagi'd know more about it. Ask her. Don't know what happened to the kid though. Probably died of sickness or something. There was a lot of plague back then."   
"Ukifune," Miroku said, and the word caused Shippou to jump.   
"Ukifune? You're sure?" he asked, suddenly losing fear of the gravemarkers, and peering in closer to Miroku's stone. "That's what it says? Her name? You're sure?"   
"Hai. It's faded from time, but yes. Why?"   
Shippou grunted, folding his arms. "Nobody ever listens to me, I swear. I told you already, that girl said her name was Ukifune!"   
"What girl?" Kagan demanded from behind them, focusing on the two huddled at the gravestone. "There's nobody here but us and you and your friends. What girl?"   
"Shippou claims he saw yurei, Kagan-san. A girl ghost, who apparently calls herself Ukifune. The similarity likely is unsettling."   
Their host was frowning, lips drawn thinly as he thought. "So some angry yurei is causing the accidents? I have a hard time believing that. Why would some ghost suddenly get angry now, if she's been dead for a couple hundred years?" Kagan hesitated, but cut in before either Miroku or Shippou could interrupt. "Oh, I get it, your shikon thing again. Seems to be pretty damn troublesome for a little bit of jewelry."   
"The Shikon no Tama is no ordinary piece of jewelry," Miroku told him, a slight edge of sharpness underlying his even tone. "And we don't know if this Ukifune girl is behind anything at all yet. She did not harm Shippou."   
Kagan shrugged and turned around, picking up his bucket of weeds and other gardening supplies. "I doubt it. Nothing's ever happened to me or Yanagi when we take care of this place. Maybe that's why we've never been attacked, eh? We take care of the memorial site of the yurei," he snorted derisively. "I'm heading back in. Yanagi's probably got my supper ready, unless she's running late. If you want to eat, I suggest you take a break from your wandering around my home."   
"We'll follow soon, Kagan-san," Miroku told him, standing up as the older man turned and left, vanishing into the beams of red light and foliage. Alone, Miroku looked down at Shippou. "You're sure she said Ukifune?"   
The kitsune nodded, hopping up onto Miroku's shoulder for a perch. "Un. He doesn't like us very much."   
Miroku shrugged and began to walk, heading back towards the mansion's interior and the kitchens, where dinner supposedly awaited. "He doesn't like people he doesn't know in his home. But I believe he may have a point."   
"What's that?"   
"If it is your Ukifune friend," he reasoned, "and Kagan-san and Yanagi-san tend to her memorial, perhaps that is why they have not been harmed."   
"I really don't think she'd hurt anybody," Shippou mumbled, partially to himself. But sitting on Miroku's shoulder, the houshi heard him.   
"Why's that?"   
Shippou fiddled with his tail for a second, thinking of the pale girl's wide lavender eyes, and how sad they seemed when he ran away. "She didn't seem angry. Just lonely. And that's not a reason to go trying to hurt people."   
"Loneliness sometimes festers, Shippou. In the case of this girl, let us hope that is not the case."   
And so they reached the mansion, and followed the scent of cooking rice.   
  
  
  
  
  
  


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Hm, well, as for Ukifune's 'grave' it's just a marker set there. People weren't always buried where their gravestones were, but the stone would sometimes be set as a memorial for the deceased. So, I put Ukifune's and her family's in a pretty garden.   
I know, not much going on in this chapter, but it's setting up stuff for next time. ^.~   
Ja ne!   
-Queen 


	6. An Ash Grey Inheritance

Kami Monogatari   
  
  


_"It does not do to dwell on dreams- remember that."_   
_ -Albus Dumbledore to Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_

_"Do thou thy worst."_   
_-Mordred, Le Morte d'Arthur_

  
  
  
  
  
  


Chapter 5- An Ash Grey Inheritance   
  


Inuyasha settled himself into the corner of the room, pulling Tetsusiaga up against his shoulder as he prepared to rest. It had been a long, frustrating day, made only worse by the fact that they seemed to be going in circles. Kagome was adamant she could not sense the exact location of the missing shard; he believed her. But still. Shifting around, he wished for a convenient tree. Corners of rooms just didn't let him keep an eye on everything at once. Not with the strange attacks. He could break down the screen between their rooms in an instant. He already had, hearing Kagome scream last night. The enemy this time made him uncomfortable, particularly since he didn't know how to fight it. Intangible enemies...yurei. It was annoying. And worrisome. How to fight a nightmare?   
Sango still slept, though lightly now, not like the dead. After eating themselves, Inuyasha followed Kagome with a tray of steaming soup, hoping the unconscious girl had awakened. Now it sat beside the shoji, cold and uneaten.   
So they found a headstone, had they? The hanyou looked over at Shippou and Miroku, both lying on futons. Shippou was snoring away, curled up, but he could see Miroku's eyes still open, staring at the ceiling. Inuyasha wasn't sure if the houshi was restless, or simply not tired. The findings of the day amounted to very little; Ukifune's memorial, and several sets of empty hands. Maybe in the morning, he'd take a look at this memorial himself. He didn't expect to find much, but best to check it out regardless, shikon no kakera or no shikon no kakera. Right now though, staying within range of the others was more important, he admitted grumpily. His hand twitched to the Tetsusiaga, claw tapping hollowly against the sheath. Nothing would happen to Kagome on his watch.   
The thoughts spun in lazy circles in his head, sleep not quite in reach of his mind, held back by determination and watchfulness. Hearing something stir, he opened his eyes a bit to watch Miroku toss off the light cover, his dark silhouette moving against the moonlit woven window. Inuyasha's golden eyes opened a fraction, watching the houshi from under his bangs. "Oy, bouzu. Where're you going?"   
Miroku's shadow paused, not startled at the sound. "Out. Be back soon," came the reply, accompanied by the muffled ringing of his staff. Inuyasha frowned, but wasn't about to argue. If Miroku had to take a piss, that was his business.   
"Feh," he muttered, folding his arms more tightly and closing his eyes.   
The darkened shadow on the floor moved quietly towards the door, sliding it back and stepping through, light shifting then returning to dark as it closed.   


Light fell in sharp contrast to the blackness outside the rooms, and it passed over him several times as he moved along the corridor, glad that whoever had built the old palace had night wanderers in mind. The light was not great, but enough to see by. Enough to hide in, but enough to see. Water flowed underfoot as he passed the indoor walkways, leading over the streams and tiny lakes of water that flowed under the structure of the mansion. Miroku hesitated under the curving slope of the black roof, checking the ofuda placed there. The dark aura over this place was intensifying, and he could feel it. It was slight. Not enough to speak about. But there, all the same. Contrary to the darkness was the little garden and its pool of lotuses, resting so peacefully just beyond the hedge, hiding the tall cedar and the three memorial stones of the mansion's original family.   
He wondered why.   
It bothered him enough to keep him awake, and finally he decided he wouldn't be able to sleep until he'd been there again, seeing the thing at night, though he doubted that would change it.   
The temperature had dropped as night settled in, chilling him slightly, and he shrugged a bit deeper into his robes, resisting a yawn. He could sleep later.   
The garden was only a short walk at a fast pace, and he headed towards it, carefully retracing his steps from that evening. It was strange, dinner that night. There was a face missing, still sleeping, still hurt. The handprint on his face faded after a few minutes, but Miroku did want to know what exactly he had done this time to deserve a good smacking. It wasn't as though he was leaning in to kiss her or anything. Not that he wasn't the last time, but...he allowed himself a slightly lecherous little grin at the memory. Damn, she was strong. And it was a misunderstanding...more or less. It definitely was this time.   
Broad maple leaves dappled the path before him, and lacy white flowers hemmed the edges of the worn footpath. He followed his shadow along, passing by the flowerbeds in their neat rows, blooms tightly closed for the night. With the moon just waxing, there was enough light to see by, and as he drew closer to the pond, tiny moving points of golden light swirled and eddied in the air, fireflies, come out for the night sky. The peaceful aura that emanated from this place seemed dead somehow, the warmth of a star replaced by nothingness.   
"I didn't imagine it," he mumbled, partially to convince himself. Energy didn't simply vanish, good or bad, within a few hours span of time. Moving around the hedge, he first looked at the black stones before the tree, then craned his neck back to look up into the thick branches. Fireflies swirled upward there, spiraling downwards and flickering around the garden. One rested lightly on the top of the smallest marker, glowing, fading, glowing again. "Nothing."   
He turned and moved to the pond, pushing past the willow fronds. Oddly, the flowers here were not closed, but open, floating on the still water calmly, sitting atop reflected stars.   
There was the soft sound of a footfall, and Miroku spun, staff up and ready to fight. Sango jumped back a step, also in fighting position, hands up and eyes narrowed. "Houshi-sama, what are you doing out here?"   
"I came to investigate the gravestones again. What are you doing here? I thought you were still injured." He did not lower his guard, watching her with mild suspicion. He did not know how Sango had been injured that morning, other than near drowning. And she was hardly one to be easily attacked. Who knew what she'd seen?   
"I got up a little while ago...I got some food," likewise, she also remained suspicious, but backed up slightly. "Being out all day makes you hungry. The food at the door was cold. Did Kagome bring it?"   
Miroku relaxed a bit, standing upright again. "Hai. After dinner."   
Slowly, she nodded, lowering her hands as well and stepping forward cautiously. "Today is still today, isn't it? How long was I out?"   
"It's later tonight," he confirmed, but then realized she had not answered the question of why she was here. "Why are you out here?"   
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she edged forward, and he watched as she slowly began to understand he was not a disguised enemy there to attack her. "On my way back...I saw something moving. So I followed. Just you, I guess," she explained warily. "What did you say about gravestones? How much have I missed?"   
"Not too much," he admitted with a sigh, shrugging and setting his staff aside, against the willow's trunk. "Shippou claims there's a ghost wandering around here. A little girl. We found her memorial this evening."   
"A little girl is causing all this?" she said, slightly disbelieving. "You're sure?"   
"Shippou doesn't seem to think so, but so far it's our best lead. I've begun to wonder if he wasn't imagining things. No one else has seen the child. You were attacked...do you remember anything? Kagome-sama said she didn't...."   
Sango shook her head sharply, as though trying to dislodge a disturbing memory. Expressions crossed her face, fear and anger at once, falling into controlled blankness. "No. Nothing. Just...nothing."   
He sighed, shaking his head and giving her a small, sideways smile. "So nothing on the slapping thing?"   
She blinked. "I slapped you again?"   
"Hai."   
"Oh," she blinked, then frowned suspiciously at him, considering all the times she'd smacked him in the past. "Did you deserve it?"   
He chuckled once, grinning at her mischievously. "Not that time."   
She gave him a glare in return, and the smile faded away as he turned back to the water. The darkness still hedged the place, held back by the tiny dancing lights on the water. She followed his gaze to the water's surface, looking at her own reflection, then his. "Nothing here?"   
"No," he replied, serious once more. The water did not ripple, and was perfect in its mirrorlike quality. He could see she had dressed quickly and quietly, her hair still messy from long sleep, and a crease lay stretched across her left cheek from where it rested on the small pillow. She began to yawn, and covered her mouth with her hand politely. Quietly, something rattled, clacking together, and she froze, jerking her hand down again.   
"I'm heading back, if you're just looking at things. You can catch me up in-"   
"Sango, what was that noise?" he asked, lifting his eyes from the pond and focusing on her. The sound was familiar. He heard it every time he moved his right hand, didn't he? "Are you wearing a rosary?"   
Sango looked like she'd been caught, nervously looking away from him. "Eh...uh...hai." Her head snapped up as he suddenly moved forward, a hand reaching out. She backed away, more than ready to apply a good hard deterrent to any perverted motions he was about to make.   
Instantly, he brought his hands up, motioning for peace. "Just want to look at your hand, Sango."   
Anger subsided into embarrassment, and she hid it quickly, quietly bringing up her hand to reveal her wrist. "I just thought it would be good to have in case something tried to come after me again," she admitted reluctantly, the beads clicking quietly against each other as she looked at them. "It's the only one I have." Glancing back up, she saw his expression, somewhat sad. "Nani?"   
"So you've kept it?" he asked, slightly curious. Slowly, she nodded, looking away and fighting a blush. Watching her, he felt unusually aware of the fact there was nobody around, and how beautiful Sango could look in the night, shifting from foot to foot in attempt to avoid his gaze. Her keeping his rosary pleased him somehow, but to know it had failed her bothered him. "It didn't seem to do you much good this time," he allowed, turning away with a frown.   
She moved forward, standing beside him and trying to catch his eyes. It seemed strange, for him to be thinking protectively. For a moment she debated with herself on what to say. Make him feel better, giving him a mental image of her swimming around and bathing, or let him think he'd let her down somehow? She sighed. "I wasn't wearing it when I was attacked...."   
"Ah."   
Her eyebrows lifted, puzzled at the lack of response. "Daijobu ka, houshi-sama? Are you all right?"   
Slowly he shook his head, looking up. The image in the water stirred as a leaf fell into it, sending ripples over the water. "I'm just not feeling myself tonight," he sighed.   
Quietly, she nodded, trying to decide whether or not she should head back in. It was late, and though sleeping all day kept her from being tired, she should at least go...she paused in her train of thought. Then her eyebrow twitched, and she felt her hands form into fists. Something warm was resting on her rear end, and that something definitely did not belong there. Wheeling away and breaking the grab, she brought her hand back, ready for that good hard deterrent right now. "Not feeling yourself, are you? So you're going to feel me instead?!"   
Smack.   
Miroku rubbed his face, sporting a fresh handprint twice in the same day. He watched Sango turn, ready to storm off, but before she could do so much as turn, she froze, staring, dropping into a defensive position. "Houshi-sama."   
The words were so cold, he turned, barely able to register shock before a feeling of fury descended on him. There, just on the path of the garden, stood Naraku.   
Something around him shifted, the world that was close tilting, distorting as he placed a hand on the rosary sealing the kazaana. "Sango. Go get the others."   
"You think I'm leaving you alone now? Baka. You'll get killed."   
"Very sweet," came the voice from within the baboon mask. In the moonlight, the white pelt gleamed, surrounding the figure within. "But I grow tired of this game." From under the pelt, one, slender hand emerged, pointing and then flicking fingers at the direction of Miroku. At once, the houshi pulled on the rosary, ripping it open to the familiar strain of the void. Naraku was here. No little ghost girls. No strange nightmares. Just another plan. Just another trap....   
But as the beads slid through his fingers, there was a cracking sound, as though glass were breaking.   
The rosary shattered in his hand.   
Pain whipped upward through is arm, control over the curse draining away with the fragments of beads falling to the ground. So much for the quest. So damn sudden. No big battle. Just showing up there, on the path, no warning. So damn sudden. But if this was his time to die, unable to seal the curse, then sure as hell he was taking that bastard with him.   
Soil and rocks flew wildly around him, fireflies dying as they were pulled in by the kazaana. He turned, pulling it away from the garden and from Sango, who was trying to avoid the flying debris. Dizzy, so dizzy, he felt like his arm was on fire, breaking, the hole expanding. Cracking. He aimed it straight at the hateful figure before him, trying to move forward. But Naraku remained still, braced against the wind, the white pelt cloak writhing around him.   
"Kazaana!"   
The pelt flew off, revealing the figure beneath.   
But this person was not Naraku. Instead, a young woman, pale, blank white eyes watching the moment of his destruction. Her dark hair was shorn at the shoulders, rippling forward as he tried to pull her into the void with him. Ash grey robes draped her, still and long, sleeves hiding her hands. A tiny smile touched the tips of her lips, a smile without amusement.   
Enemy. Whoever she was, an enemy. He was being torn apart.   
"Houshi-sama!"   
The world shifted again, looking over his shoulder. So slowly, so very slowly, he could see Sango moving forward, not away, a hand clasping the old rosary he had given her. It was a way to seal the kazaana. But blackness began to overwhelm the pain of it, circling in on his vision, dulling the world which rose up around him. And he could see her face, suddenly horrified, as the world became an explosion of nothingness.   
  


Pain did not belong in the nothingness.   
Blackness is a void, empty of sensation.   
And yet, something stung.   
A horrified face.   
Naraku.   
Kazaana.   
Stinging.   
"Houshi-sama! Daijobu ka?"   
Fireflies blinking out.   
A horrified face.   
Naraku.   
"Baka! Wake up!"   
Wake up?   
The stinging sensation repeated itself, sharply, and he realized someone was smacking his face repeatedly. Not hard, but enough to cause pain. He tried opening his eyes. Failed. Tried again.   
Stinging.   
A horrified face.   
A worried face, hovering over his, eyes wide and worried, searching his. "Houshi-sama? Daijobu ka?"   
Sango watched, waiting for a response. He blinked hard several times, the world shifting around him dimly. The floor was hard, wooden, and as his eyes focused, he saw the roof of the verandah, the outer wall of the mansion, and the stone steps leading down to the pathways of the courtyards. Then to the face floating above him, questioning.   
It was easy to reach forward, pull himself up while pulling her to him. "I thought I'd killed you," he mumbled, relief coloring his voice as he rested his face against her shoulder. Not dead. Alive. Both of them. Alive.   
Sango held herself stiffly, partly from surprise, partly from uncertainty. Quiet, alone in the moonlit shadows, save for Kirara who was sitting politely against the wall, watching this display with quiet interest. Houshi-sama had been attacked, that much was clear. Disoriented, confused. Probably sick too, she decided. Crazy, perverted houshi...crazy, perverted houshi who seemed so relieved suddenly....   
"D...daijobu...ka?"   
"A woman..." Sango almost let her confusion slip into anger. Barely conscious and already babbling about women? But Miroku was not done, continuing, "grey robes...of a nun...white eyes...."   
The words fell softer and softer, until he relaxed, his grip loosening and hands sliding away from her shoulders. She caught him before he could hit his head on the floor. "Kirara, go-"   
The firecat was already on her feet, but growling. Alarmed, Sango edged herself around, searching for whatever was upsetting Kirara. There was nothing there but the wind, cold and sharp.   
Something broke. The sound of splintering wood cracked through the air, booming loudly as the planks of the walkway were split down the middle, torn up in a perfect row. She flung herself against the wall for the slight promise of safety, pulling Miroku with her to avoid the splinters.   
The sudden noise was heard through the mansion, and the world descended on the scene.   


"What the hell's going on?"   
"Sango-chan! Daijobu ka?"   
"Waah! What happened?!"   
Sango lifted her head, looking over her shoulder to see the others come to a skidding halt at the edge of the destroyed verandah. She couldn't stay there, clearly. The floor could cave in, and it was a steep drop to the ground below. Wedged next to the wall, she brought Miroku's arm around her shoulders, and pushed herself upright, dragging him along. "Houshi-sama's been attacked," she said, hurrying when a floorboard collapsed, hitting the ground hollowly, sending broken dishes into the darkness below them with a clatter. She glanced at his closed eyes and relaxed features, murmuring, "You've been eating too many sweets," as Inuyasha grabbed the two strugglers, coming into arms reach, taking Miroku's weight from Sango's shoulders.   
"Sango-chan, what are you doing out here? I thought you were asleep...." Kagome stepped forward, helping Sango regain her balance as Inuyasha let go.   
"I woke up a little while ago, and-" she began to explain, only to be interrupted by the sound of arrival of their hosts, Kagan with an arm out to keep Yanagi safely behind him. A hand rested on a katana, and he did not look happy.   
"What the hell's going on?"   
"Miroku got attacked!" Shippou shouted in reply, perched on Kagome's shoulder. The two older people stood at the crux in the verandah, a sharp angle several lengths away. At their feet lay the end of the destruction.   
Kagan's face grew hard set, but seeing the danger was over, his hand fell to the side a bit, and Yanagi edged her way forward, murmuring something in his ear. Kagan nodded, and the two turned to the railing, Kagan jumping down first to help his wife to the ground.   
"Inuyasha," Kagome said quietly, turning to the hanyou. "We should go inside. It's not safe out here...."   
"And it'll be safer inside?"   
"There'll be Miroku-sama's..." she hesitated, then turned and blinked in mild surprise. Breaking off her train of thought, she glanced at Sango. "He was on the porch?" At her nod, Kagome bit her lip nervously, eyes growing troubled. "Inside the ofuda barrier?"   
"Kuso," Inuyasha said, following Kagome's train of thought. Sure enough, one of the paper wards was still posted on the railing of the verandah, undamaged by the attack.   
"Is the houshi-sama all right?" Yanagi asked quietly as she ascended the stone steps, haltingly moving forward. "You can't just have him slung around your neck all night. Come on," she decided, taking charge of the situation by helping Inuyasha. When he did not protest the old woman's help, she began to walk, and by doing so, broke the uncertainty of the group, and all began to follow them, returning to the empty rooms.   
So great was their hurry toward the sound that the shoji remained open, futon covers rumpled and trailing over the floor. Inuyasha and Yanagi angled the unconscious monk onto his futon, laying him down. Yanagi pulled the light blanket up over him as Kagome slipped into the girls' room, returning a moment later with her First Aid kit. Shippou hovered between them, fidgeting nervously.   
His job done, Inuyasha turned to Sango and Kagan, who had taken place by the door. Eyes narrowing, he gave Sango a glare, tone slightly accusatory. "I didn't hear you get up."   
She sighed, running a hand over her forehead. For a moment, her fingertips brushed over the gauze bandage Kagome applied that morning. Slipping on the rock had given her a cut and purple bruise over her right eye, and the white butterfly bandages were keeping it sealed. "I'm not a taiji-ya for nothing, Inuyasha," she told him, placing a hand lightly on the short sword at her hip. "I didn't go out unarmed. And I took Kirara with me, as well," she glanced at the cat at her feet, large red eyes turned upward as she kept up with the conversation, head swiveling back and forth. "I can be quiet."   
"Feh," he grumbled, folding his arms and scowling. "It's dangerous."   
"I take it you were attacked as well?" Kagan interrupted, getting a look at Sango's bandage. "I didn't see you wandering aimlessly with the others today."   
"This morning," she frowned, glancing at Miroku. "Kagome?"   
She lifted her head, snapping the First Aid kit closed and answering the unspoken question with a little smile. "He's okay. Just passed out. What happened?"   
Sango folded her hands, lacing the fingers together. "I woke up a little while ago...the food was cold...did you bring it, Kagome?" she asked as she thought, and got a nod for the reply. Sango nodded, continuing, "I thought I'd heat it up or something. So I was headed to the kitchen...and I saw houshi-sama lying there."   
"Did he say anything?" Shippou queried, tilting his head to the side quizzically. "Anything about what happened?"   
She smiled faintly at the little kitsune, then grew very serious, eyes clouding as she tried to concentrate on what he said, rather than what he did. She shifted from foot to foot for a moment, then continued her story. "Something about a woman in a nun's robes. Grey robes, of a nun, he said. And white eyes."   
"White eyes?" Kagome asked instantly, head coming up a bit at the mention of them. So quietly Kanna stood, the darkness of her eyes as white and pale as the rest of her. "Did you see..." she began, and her thought was confirmed when Sango already began to nod.   
"Kohaku...his eyes...." she closed hers, lashes squeezed tightly shut against the flashes of memory. The fragments of thought were unnaturally clear, falling like shards of glass through her mind, each cutting. She got control of herself, opening her eyes. "I slapped him when I woke up, didn't I?"   
"Yeah, but that's not exactly unusual," Inuyasha intoned dryly, almost smirking at the somehow amusing memory of that. But he also said, more seriously, "Did he do something to Kohaku in the dream?"   
Her eyes fell to the floor, and she quietly said, "He took the shard from his back. I caught him. He died."   
It was blunt, but they understood. Yanagi and Kagan exchanged looks, not knowing the background of the story, but the effect on the storyteller and on the other members of the group was enough to give them an idea. "A family member, Sango-san?" Yanagi asked softly from where she knelt on the floor, beside Miroku.   
Just as softly, she replied, "My younger brother."   
"Ah. I see."   
Stillness.   
It stretched into a long moment, broken by Inuyasha's sudden turning and movement to the painted screens between rooms, then harshly shoving them aside with a scraping, breaking sound. It contrasted sharply to the quiet, causing Kagome to wince as wood squealed against wood. The two rooms, with the screen shoved against the windows, were now one room. Inuyasha turned, facing the wide eyes that watched him and meeting their gazes. "Nobody goes out alone. Especially not at night." He locked eyes with Kagan, then Yanagi, repeating, "Nobody."   
Yanagi frowned, preparing to stand. She did not like to take orders, particularly from an overbearing hanyou a good many years younger than her. "You can't possibly expect-"   
"I'm inclined to agree," a voice intoned, thoughtfully bland. Several sets of eyes switched from Inuyasha to Kagan, somewhat startled to see him in agreement, a hand clasping his chin, brows furrowed in thought. He gave Inuyasha a sideways glance, adding, "Maybe some of the good luck we've had will rub off on you. You can't seem to protect anything on your own."   
A dark growl began to form in Inuyasha's throat, but part of him knew Kagan was doing the same as he would have done; try cover up for agreeing with someone he didn't really like that much. After a moment, he settled into just a, "Feh. At least you seem to have a brain in that withered head of yours, jiji."   
Kagan snorted at the bravado, taking the attitude in kind. "At least you know when to listen to your elders."   
"It was my fucking idea, old man!"   
"You will speak properly to this 'old man,' boy!"   
Yanagi and Kagome sighed, shaking their heads.   
  
  
  
  


*****************************************   


Okay, let's see....   
That whole scene between Miroku and Sango? Eheh...big dream. I know, I'm terrible, it wasn't real. But the discussion about the rosary...that's lifted from the manga. It's in Chapter 206, '_The Lady in the Mountain._' Miroku gives Sango a rosary, and nothing's been said about it since then...so I'm assuming she's still got it. (I mean, what else would she do? Throw it away? Give it back? Nah...where's the fun in that?)   
Also, in the dream, when Miroku sucks in 'Naraku's' baboon pelt, it reveals a woman in 'a nun's robes' underneath. I have to admit, I'm no expert on Buddist fashion. But again, I'm refering to things mentioned in the "_Tale of Genji_" as well as another book, "_The Tale of Murasaki_" by Liza Dalby. (Excellent book! Historical fiction about Murasaki Shikibu's life...it's an incredible read...highly reccomended.) In both books, Heian era Buddhist nuns are described as wearing "dull" or "grey" colored robes, and cut their hair short. So, this character is taking that description.   
So, ja ne til next time.   
-Queen 


	7. Nothing A Downpour Won't Erase

Kami Monogatari   
  
  


_From darkness I understand the night:_   
_dreams flow, a star shines_   
_The song of the star enchants my heart._   
_Ah! I desire...._   
_-'Aniron' Lord of the Rings Soundtrack_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Chapter 6- Nothing A Downpour Won't Erase   


Shippou was running.   
One day. Amazing how quickly things could happen in one, single day.   
So he ran.   
Back to where he was before, down the path that led to the river, down through the canopy of trees and past the chrysanthemums that were still tightly closed from the night. Dawn stretched gossamer fingers through the sky, turning it shades of yellow and pink on the horizon.   
He'd left Miroku and Sango, both still sleeping, in their rooms. Kirara had lifted her head curiously as he made for the door, making a small, inquisitive growl at his disobeyment of orders. With the coming of the day, their hosts rose in unison, accustomed to certain patterns of life. Kagan to work, Yanagi to cook, and to go about their business at the mansion. He kept his head down and eyes closed as their movements woke Inuyasha and Kagome, the latter of the two sitting up and sleepily rubbing her eyes.   
In the distance, he could smell breakfast cooking, rice steaming into the cool of the morning. Inuyasha had paused a moment, allowing Kagome to get herself together, before heading out after Yanagi and breakfast. Sango and Miroku slept lightly on their futons, Miroku from his round with the yurei, Sango from overhanging weariness. With the room silent for a moment, Shippou slipped away in a little puff of magic, intending to find out more about this strange yurei woman with white eyes.   
Ukifune's were lavender.   
He remembered that much, at least. And perhaps she was still out playing, as she was yesterday, at the riverbank, playing kemari alone. He wouldn't be scared this time. No, he'd march right up to her, and ask her what she knew. He'd ask if she was trying to hurt anyone- not that she was, just a question, after all, he had to be sure. And if she knew something, and it wasn't her, then he'd demand she tell him who it....   
The thoughts whirling in his head faded away with the darkness of the morning, hesitating on the last small hill of the path to the river. Interlocking branches of trees gave way, drawing back to reveal a tiny figure at the waterside, standing on a bare ledge of rock. Pale lavender robes still clung around her, dark hair fell over her back loosely, the ribbons used to adorn it clutched in little white hands. Nervousness suddenly replaced the childlike determination. He really hadn't thought much about what he was getting himself into, alone out here. And now, alone out here, he suddenly thought of all things that were possible for a yurei, particularly an angry yurei, to do to him. He gulped hard, making his hands into fists, and tried to march over the way he'd planned to that night.   
"U...Ukifune?" The demand of her attention came out unevenly, voice cracking a little. Frustration set in, feeling silly. She may be a yurei, but he was a youkai, wasn't he? No girl was going to respect him if he was scared shitless of her. He straightened up hard when she paused, turning to the side for a moment to look at him.   
Her eyes were dry, shadowed and hollow. But they blinked in surprise at seeing him standing there, drawn up to his full height in a bluff at confidence. Her ribbons were clutched in her hands tightly, knuckles white. A tiny smile formed on her lips, and her eyes softened, shining. "You came to see me again? Arigatou, Shippou-kun."   
"Eh...." he began, looking down at his feet, not really sure why he was so nervous again. "Uh, sorry...I ran off...I...." He looked up at her again, and the small smile had spread, lighting her face. "I came to...I came to ask...."   
"I didn't bring my ball today," she told him gently, looking back at the two purple ribbons in her hands, twined between her fingers. "I thought I'd be alone again."   
So very lonely, he realized. The relevation gave him courage somehow, a little understanding. And with understanding came a lessening in fear. He edged forward, standing beside her on the edge of the river. He felt like he should say something, maybe something consoling. He debated that with himself, worried about how stupid he'd sound and all, being mushy and sweet next to some girl. Some dead girl, on top of it.   
"This is where I died."   
It shattered his thoughts, and he looked up to see her face, tilted slightly to the side, eyes trailing to the water. He wasn't so much smaller than her, it seemed at the moment. She was so tiny, like a porcelain doll, easily broken. Shippou followed her gaze, and looked on the water, face serious as he decided to get down to business. "We found your memorial yesterday. In the garden. It had your name on it."   
"Did it?" she asked faintly. "I don't go there."   
"Kagan was taking care of it." he said in a rush, then added nervously, "He said he kept it up, him and Yanagi."   
"I know," she told him in a whispery voice.   
"Miroku and I found it," he continued after a moment, screwing up a little more courage. "He was attacked last night." Peering around to see her face did him little good. She was still, downcast, hands folded into her sleeves, ribbons trailing. The silence made him persistent, trying to force himself into her vision. "I wanted to ask you if you knew anything about it. He said he saw some woman in a nightmare. With white eyes. Dressed like a nun or something. If you're always around here, I thought maybe you'd know. We're looking for this thing called the Shikon no Tama...it gives power to youkai, and if something bad's got it, we could use some help finding the shards that are around here."   
"A woman...with white eyes...." she returned his look, then pulled away, returning to the water's surface. Still, very still, troubled and silent, voice scratchy and faint. She closed her eyes in remembrance, folded hands raised to her lips. "Ash grey robes, shorn hair. White eyes, blank and sightless. White eyes, washed away in the downpour in the river...." The ribbons in her hands loosened, slipping away into the water, swirling along the surface. Slowly, her eyes opened, and she looked at her hands, at the traceries and patterns in her palms. "Shikon no kakera. Shards of something larger than itself. Power used for good," she lifted one hand, "or evil," she lifted the other, cupping them together. Then, solemnly, "I'm not strong enough to protect you from her, too."   
A mixture of thoughts swirled through his head, mingled with a bit of awe and relief, as well as fear. He felt relief because she knew of this attacker, and relief because it was not her. Fear, because she knew of this attacker. Fear because that meant there was an unknown enemy out there, and she just stated she could not protect him from it. Not that he wanted her to.   
"I can protect myself," he managed with a little bluster, folding his arms and looking a bit smug. At the moment, he was pretty sure he could, too. He had to show off, if something happened. No running away in front of Ukifune. She'd think he was a coward, and he definitely didn't want that. "I'm more worried about you. I mean, you're a girl. I'd have to protect you and all. Fancy ladies don't go around fighting. Inuyasha always is protecting Kagome, and you're a noble or something too, aren't you?"   
Ukifune was quietly smiling again, shoulders shaking slightly as she giggled lightly, hands pressed to her mouth to cover it. "You're very sweet, Shippou-kun."   
"Eh?" he looked up, startled at her. He was trying to sound matter of fact and blunt. Sweet was not exactly what he'd been aiming for. Slightly insulted, he said, "I am not. I'm just saying, you're a lady, and I'd have to protect you. It's just because you're a girl."   
There was a look of amusement on her face still, half hidden by her long sleeves. "Maybe I'd be stronger if I were a soldier or a boy. Playing kemari wouldn't be so strange then, even if I'm not very good at it, ne?"   
He scratched his head, shrugging. "Dunno. We didn't play too long yester...aw, shimatta," he muttered, looking up. "Somebody's going to miss me if I don't get back..." he took a breath, deciding what to do. She knew about their yurei. And she'd help, wouldn't she? All fear of her had left him now. He wasn't frightened anymore. "Ukifune, will you come back with me and tell everyone what you know about...."   
The words trailed as she suddenly looked up, the sleeves falling away from her face, lips drawing into a thin, pained line. "No..." her voice was again faint, but this time, edged. Bewildered at her sudden intensity, he turned back and forth between her and the direction she was staring, towards the mansion's far side, the kitchens.   
"Ukifune, daijobu ka?"   
She clapped her hands together, holding them before her and squeezing her eyes shut as though pained. "Their kindness will not be repaid with harm! I will not let you hurt them! No!" Her eyes flew open again as a brilliant light emanated from her clasped hands, blinding Shippou in a dazzling glow of lavender.   
  


Inuyasha suppressed a yawn, heading forward along the path. Breakfast was quick, seeing he wanted to get moving early. Kagome was waking up slowly, rubbing her eyes occasionally with her knuckles, removing sleep. They kept pace evenly, walking alongside one another, and he slipped a quick look at her. She was still slightly rumpled from the night, but idly smoothing over wrinkles in the blue kimono Yanagi had given her. The ribbon fell out of its loop long ago, but Kagome had used it to tie her hair into a tail at the nape of her neck, revealing a smooth expanse of white skin above the kimono's collar. He coughed a little, shaking his head and trying to get to business.   
"Kagan-jiji said the garden place was up here, didn't he?" Inuyasha asked, perfectly aware of the strong scent of flowers ahead. The screened the place, blossoms barely opening again from the night, chrysanthemums and wisteria.   
"Hai," she replied, moving forward and around a hedge, emerging into the grove and flowers. Kagome knelt, running her fingers over the closed blooms of wisteria. "Kirei." Looking around, beds of flowers beneath trees around her, she smiled. "It's so beautiful, ne, Inuyasha?"   
He had moved several steps along, pausing when he heard her question. Settled before the flowers, dawn's new light touching her hair, he tried to think of what to say in return, so delicate the smile on her face. She blinked up at him as he groped about for a proper reply, standing and dusting off her kimono. "Yeah. Beautiful," he managed, turning away and folding his arms.   
She sighed. "Mou, Inuyasha, you act like you don't know beauty when you see it-"   
"I do so!"   
"Oh really?" she drolled, lifting an eyebrow and beginning to move towards the broad branches of a cedar tree. She brushed away long willow fronds with a hand as she walked, looking over her shoulder to see Inuyasha giving her the glare of death. "Now what?"   
"You don't know what I'm thinking at all!"   
She blinked a couple times, uncertainly. "Okay...."   
He grunted, "Never mind. Didn't the jiji say the gravestones were under a cedar?"   
"Hai, that's where I'm...headed." She finished as the base of the tree came into view, three black stone markers set at the roots, pale purple chrysanthemums breaking the ground. Sunlight was reflecting brightly off the edges of the stones, white light. Inuyasha squatted down before the smallest of the three, marked with characters of kanji, writing out the name of the deceased, the sharp cuts smoothed from time.   
"This must be the one, then," he said, running a claw over the traceries in the stone. "Ukifune."   
"I'm not sure what we should be expecting. It is just a marker," Kagome frowned thoughtfully, leaning over Inuyasha's shoulder and getting a look for herself. "Such a sad story, the parents. I wonder what happened to the girl, to make her soul stay behind."   
"Don't know." He glanced up, watching Kagome as she looked, then her eyes switched to his. "You don't sense anything around here?"   
She shook her head. "I wasn't sure if there would be anything or not but..." she straightened up, biting her lip and looking around. Light was spreading across the ground, brightening the garden and the flora within. "It must have been a terrible thing, to keep a girl's soul here," she said quietly, folding her hands and moving away from the memorial. "Shippou says he's seen a little girl named Ukifune," she counted on one finger, then another as she added, "Miroku-sama said something about a woman in the robes of a nun...."   
"That's what I'd like to know. What the hell are we looking for? A kid or a Buddhist nun?"   
"I don't know," she sighed, reaching the lip of a pond. The water was cool, reflective, and she saw her form in the surface, rippling quietly. A moment later, Inuyasha's red clad figure appeared in the reflection as well, standing beside her. Her eyes scanned the surface rapidly, slightly confused. Then, "Here."   
Bewildered, "Here? What here?"   
"The aura of a shikon no kakera."   
"Why the hell didn't you say so before?" he demanded, moving towards the water. She grabbed his sleeve, shaking her head and halting him. "No?"   
"Something was here. There _was_ a shard here. It's faint. Like its moved."   
He frowned, backing away from the water and shaking droplets off his feet as she released his arm. "Great. So the psychotic yurei thing has it. Either some twisted kid or the demented nun from hell."   
"Inuyasha!" Kagome snapped, scolding him. "Don't say that. Especially not so close to a memorial for the dead." Her eyes slipped to the three small obelisks. "We don't know what's going on yet. Don't be rude."   
"Feh. What we need is to exorcize the damn things."   
Kagome considered that a moment, then agreed, "Mm, yes, and the only one of us who would know how to perform that kind of rite is-"   
"Currently snoozing his perverted mind away," Inuyasha muttered darkly. "That thing is attacking in a pattern, we know that at least." At Kagome's startled look, Inuyasha elaborated. "Look, first it attacks you, trying to get to the shikon no kakera we already have. Whatever happened to you, you somehow managed to fight it off," he stated, frowning at his own inability to help. Looking back down at her, he continued, "Sango was next, since it failed with you. She's not able to protect herself from spirit attacks like that as good as you. The bouzu next, removing our ability to exorcize it once we realized it was a ghost. Both completely drained afterwards, even Miroku, who's supposed to be trained for that sort of thing."   
Kagome had been thinking through his explanation, a hand to her chin. "It's growing stronger then. Attacking us one at a time, while we're alone," she shivered. "Almost like it's feeding off our nightmares. And also...you said it was trying to get my shards," she said, pulling the chain out from under her kimono and looking at their slivers of glowing jewel. "If it already has the shards that were here...then why go after mine? Why try to gain strength off of us?"   
"I don't know."   
Kagome slipped the jewel back under her clothes, pressing a hand against where it rested under the soft blue cloth, a worried look in her eyes.   
"Don't worry."   
"Eh?" She looked up. His face was serious, hard set. "If it tries to go after you again..." his golden eyes grew very hard, dark brows drawing down under white bangs. The words hung, the implication clear, even if he wasn't entirely sure of what he would do were the situation to arise.   
Faintly, she smiled, the sunlight growing brighter against her face. "Don't worry, Inuyasha," she told him gently. "I have faith in you."   
She smelled faintly of the flowers she had touched earlier, and of her shampoo, sweet in the dew on the grass, and against the cool water of the reflective pond, pink lotuses drifting silently on the surface. A few strands of hair were loose from the ribbon, floating around her face in the light breeze. She believed in him, even if he hadn't been able to help her last time....   
But then there was something discordant in the air. He sniffed the wind, catching the acidic scent.   
"Inuyasha?"   
He grabbed her, tucking her neatly under an arm and breaking into a run.   
"Inuyasha!" she repeated, no longer just curious, but alarmed.   
"There's smoke in the air."   
In mansions of this one's age, the threat of an untamed flame could be serious, entire buildings going up in smoke within minutes. Wood posts and floors, with paper shoji and screens, made for easy kindling. And there were people inside. Kagome felt a shock of fear as the word registered on her lips.   
"Fire."   
And they ran.   
  
  


Yanagi covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve, coughing hard as smoke swirled around her, filling her lungs. "Kagan!" Her eyes roamed dizzily around the room, vision hedged with the dark glow of one about to lose consciousness. Despite the heat from the flames, something cold ran down her spine, making her shiver in impulse.   
And yet as quickly as the darkness came, bursting in accordance with the flames of the brazier, it vanished as the firelight washed across the floor, both warming and terrifying at once.   
The kitchen was a mess, floor strewn with cutlery and pans, shelves overturned and drawers yanked from their slots, evidence of an angry poltergeist. Flames soared upward from the brazier, overturned onto the floor as the fire climbed up the side of the wooden counter. Her eyes watered, stinging from the air, and then saw the hazy form of Kagan, stumbling his way over to her and yanking her to her feet from where she had fallen. He coughed hard, laboring to breathe as he steered them clear of the fallen knives and sharp shards of broken pottery.   
A hand grabbed his elbow, and he heard Inuyasha shout at him, "Come on!" leading him straight to the doorway, where Kagome was waiting, arms outstretched, ushering the older couple outside. Once out the door, Inuyasha snapped, "There's a pump inside, right?" Yanagi barely had time to nod before he was gone again, charging into the fire. Black smoke was beginning to billow through the doorframe, and Kagome smacked her forehead, following his train of thought and running in after him.   
The fire had spread up the counter to the wall, heading towards the roofbeams that held the ceiling up. Burned through, they'd collapse, taking down a good portion of the building with them. Kagome kicked aside the clutter at her feet, heading towards the moving person, currently grabbing up a bucket from the sink. "Inuyasha!"   
"Kagome? What the...get the fuck out of here!"   
"Baka!" she shouted back, grabbing the bucket from his hands. "Use your kimono! Smother it!"   
"My..." the idea clicked, and he ripped off the dark red fire rat cloth, using it like a blanket to cover the flames. Kagome hurled the contents of the bucket at the flame's base, the overturned brazier, dampening the coals. Beating at the flames, Inuyasha watched her run back to the sink, then hesitate, abandoning the bucket for a pot of water on the stove, grabbing for an armload of dishrags on her way, scattered on the floor. Wet rags began to fly against the walls, splattering heavily with water as the flames were doused, and only the metallic smell of smoke remained.   
"I'll have to remember to bring a fire extinguisher with me next time...." Kagome sighed as Inuyasha decided not to put on his newly charred clothing. His hair was singed, and Kagome, though with improving aim, had nailed him in the head once with a wet dishrag, successfully drenching him.   
"Don't you ever do something that stupid again," he growled at her darkly, glad for the help, but not that she'd gone and put herself in danger again.   
Kagome ignored the warning, and instead settled down next to Yanagi and Kagan, who had settled themselves on the steps by the kitchen's door. "Daijobu ka?"   
Yanagi was holding her head, a throbbing headache settling in. "Headache...I don't feel so good...." she mumbled, trying to clear her head from pounding pain. Kagan coughed hard, the movement racking his lungs as he tried to catch his breath. The air outside was clear, the wind slight and carrying away the remains of smoke coming through the doorframe.   
"Yanagi...." Kagan leaned forward, pushing a lock of grey hair from the side of his wife's face, seeing how pale she had become. He slipped an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned against him for a moment, eyes squeezed shut as she held her fingers to her temples.   
"Kagan-san," Kagome asked quietly, positioning herself on the ground before them and kneeling forward to see Yanagi better. Kagan eased away from her a moment as another round of coughing seized him, then grimaced as it ended. Kagome, with a First Aid Kit from the future or not, didn't have anything to deal with bad breathing. "What happened?"   
He hesitated a moment, waiting for Yanagi to speak. At her silence, he began, "I was about to head out, but I turned back when everything exploded. Like the porch last night." He made a motion with a hand, imitating the path of last night's attack. "Came back to get her," he ended abruptly, as Yanagi lifted her head. "You going to be all right?"   
She nodded once, hanging her head. "Everything went black. Then...bright...I think..." she drew herself small, and Kagan's grip on her shoulders tightened for a moment. Her eyes lifted to Kagome's. "Others fell this way. I've seen it before."   
"Yanagi-"   
She cut him off. "The others, Kagan. Our luck has left us now."   
"Feh. I'd say you were pretty damn lucky to walk out of there alive, babaa," Inuyasha commented from behind them, turning heads to look up at the standing member of the group. He'd tossed the charred kimono over his shoulder, and he stepped down the first stair. "Good damn thing we got here. Whole place would've burnt down."   
Kagan snorted, but as he opened his mouth to retort, another coughing spasm began, his shoulders shaking as he cleared his lungs of smoke.   
"Kagan..." Yanagi rested a hand on his shoulder, then patted his back lightly as he continued. Her worried look deepened as the fit continued a minute, finally subsiding with an audible wheeze. "We're going to town."   
"Nani?"   
"Eh?"   
Yanagi set her eyes on Kagome firmly, vision clearing in the fresh air. "Help me up, ne?"   
"Hai...."   
A protest began from Kagan, disliking the decision his wife had just arrived at. "We're not abandoning-"   
"We are not abandoning!" came the sharp reply as she released Kagome's hand, gaining her balance. "We will come back. With the others." She looked sharply at Kagome, then Inuyasha, intent clear. "When it is safe."   
They nodded once, understanding her meaning. They may remain, and put a stop to the haunting, find the shards hiding somewhere on the mansion's grounds. This was the first time for them to be attacked; the first time to be hurt. Coughing was accompanied not only by singed sleeves, but by scalded hands and cut feet from the broken dishes and knives on the floor. "This was mild, Kagan," Yanagi told him flatly. "You've seen worse. Whatever immunity we've had is gone." Her lips formed a hard line, and the sheer force of her personality was bearing down on her husband. "I won't have you catching another breathing sickness like last winter."   
He was pale, face drawn hard as he considered her words. A cold look moved from Inuyasha to Kagome and back again, considering what happened. A trick? All just a ruse to get them to leave? To steal from them? Or worse? Who knew what a youkai would do? Half youkai, he reminded himself. The idea crossed his mind, aware that Yanagi had already chosen to trust them in their home. Doubt of their trustworthiness still lingered in his thoughts. And yet. He knew his wife. Too trusting, maybe, but rarely wrong. He may not trust them, but he did trust her, however oddly she passed judgment. And it was not so much for his own coughing, but for the fact Yanagi had been attacked. Not him. Her. She was the target. And though she was safe this time, that could change very quickly.   
"Hai," he said flatly, using a railing to stand warily. "Town."   
"The one we passed a couple days ago?" Kagome asked quietly, stepping away as he descended the last steps. "The afternoon of the day we came...."   
"I have family there," Yanagi murmured.   
"We'll manage," Kagan told them, then focused a hard stare on Inuyasha. "This is our home."   
It was a simple statement, though also a reminder. Be careful, don't destroy it. We intend to return once this is over. Don't take it away. Make it safe again. I'm trusting you. This is where we live. This is our home.   
Inuyasha was serious, and he inclined his head slightly in recognition of what Kagan was telling him. "We'll see you soon then, jiji."   
"We'd better," Kagan muttered, turning to walk alongside Yanagi, who bowed politely to Kagome before she left. And quietly, the old couple headed their way across the lawn towards their rooms.   
"Ne, Inuyasha?"   
"Nani?"   
Kagome turned to face him as he stood beside her. "You said something, about them being lucky to walk out alive."   
"Yeah, so?"   
She returned her gaze to their backs, and watched them climb up the steps onto the verandah, shaded by the sloping roof. It was barely past sunrise, and yellow shafts of light were glinting down through the clouds, touching on the black tiles of the roofs. The day had begun.   
"I don't think they were just lucky. I think something's been protecting them."   
"Protecting? Well, it did a shitty job of it today."   
"Inuyasha!" Kagome glared at him for rudeness. "Why it's been attacking us...a girl and a nun...not one ghost. Two. There's two. And they're fighting."   
He glanced down at her, beginning to understand what she was thinking. There was an intense look on her face, now that she had an idea. That, and she was annoyed with him again. Oddly, it was almost funny. He tried to fight a little grin, and lost, ending up with a smirk. Of course, this didn't exactly explain where these two yurei came from...but at least now he knew what he was dealing with. "Then we have an ally here somewhere."   
"Maybe. And maybe one with the shikon no kakera we've been looking for."   
"Nani?"   
Kagome shook her head, and began to explain. "The shards were moved from where they landed. Nobody has them. So one of the yurei does. Not the one attacking, otherwise we'd all be dead by now."   
"So then why the hell isn't the one that has them using them to fight the other?"   
She gave him a look.   
He considered the usual effects of using a shard of the tama.   
"Understand?"   
"Yeah."   
A smile lit her face. "Come on. We'd better check on the others, see if if Sango-chan is awake again yet."   
And so they crossed the courtyard, flowers of chrysanthemum blooming open in the day's new light.   
  
  
  
  
  


*****************************************   
  


lalala, plot twist....   
So, there's two ghosts roaming around...you think Kagome is correct? Or is Ukifune just really warped?   
I had fun writing the Shippou/Ukifune scene..hehe, Shippou going on about how he would have to protect her from things...that was fun to write...and unexpected...I think I gave Shippou a little crush.   
Though there was actually quite a bit of action going on in this chapter, not much by way of notes. So, til next time.   
-Queen 


	8. A Marbled River of Silent Ghosts

Kami Monogatari   
  


_The shadowe catchen they ne might,_   
_For no lines that they couthe lay,_   
_This shadewe I may likne aright_   
_To this world and yesterday._   
_(This shadow never shall be caught_   
_In any trap they lay._   
_This shadow in the likeness,_   
_Of this world and yesterday.)_   
_-Aria, Mediaeval Baebes_   


  
  
  
  
  


Chapter 7- A Marbled River of Silent Ghosts   
  


  
Though the paper door, Inuyasha and Kagome could hear that Sango had indeed woken up, and was currently in the middle of chewing out Shippou for running off alone.   
"But I'm fine!"   
"It's dangerous! With all that noise, who knows what's...."   
Inuyasha slid the shoji open sharply, and Sango froze, tensing and then relaxing again in recognition. Then she stared at the mess that was Inuyasha, bits of ash on his clothes, half his hair wet, the other half singed, and with his blackened fire rat kimono over his shoulder. Kagome looked little better. "What happened to you two?"   
"Fire in the kitchen," Inuyasha explained curtly, tossing the ruined kimono into the corner of the room. "And what did you do that's so dangerous?" he asked, picking Shippou up by the tail and giving him a bored look.   
"Ack! Stop pulling on my tail! Put me down!" Shippou shouted as he tried to wriggle free of the grasp.   
"Went running off by himself this morning, after you two left," Sango told them, frowning at the squirming kitsune.   
"I went to go get information! Ukifune knows about the other one, the one Miroku saw! She said it! I was going to ask her to help!"   
"And did she agree?" came the question from Inuyasha, now a bit more interested in this ghost kid.   
"I didn't get to ask her that," was the irritated response. "She went running off crying something about people getting hurt. So I came running back here to make sure everybody was all right. Now put me down!"   
Inuyasha ignored the request to be put down, but glanced at Kagome instead. "Seems like that more or less confirms your guess. There's two of them, and they're fighting." Kagome nodded, and Sango looked between them, wide eyed. "This Ukifune kid. She know about the shikon no kakera, too?"   
"Yeah. Said something like they could be used for good or bad. I don't know, she gets weird sometimes, and starts talking all strange. Inuyasha! Put me down!"   
Inuyasha continued to ignore the request to be put down.   
"Two..." Sango murmured. Then her head snapped up. "Yanagi-san and Kagan-san?"   
"They're okay," Kagome told her, "but they were attacked. If Ukifune's been trying to protect them, she may be running out of strength."   
"So they're leaving...." she trailed thoughtfully, looking down.   
"How's Miroku-sama?"   
Looking up again, Sango shrugged, casting a worried glance at the still form on the futon. Miroku had the blanket up to his chin, head turned to the side, away from them. There was little indication of life, save for the tiny rise and fall of the blanket. "Still out. He almost looks dead...was I like that?"   
Kagome nodded. "He'll wake up eventually...." She paused. "How are you?"   
"Better. Awake again, no headache or dizziness."   
"I'm glad," Kagome replied. "If it comes back, you can take some of my aspirin...there's water in the bowl on that side of the room...."   
Sango glanced at the white box Kagome kept medicines and bandages in. The 'aspirin' would be a clear bottle of some strange material, she remembered, she'd seen Kagome use it once or twice before. "So I assume I'm keeping an eye on houshi-sama?"   
"If you would...." Kagome managed, half asking.   
"Inuyasha! Come on! That hurts!"   
"Yeah, it'd hurt a lot worse if something tried to kill you, running around by yourself. When'd you get so damn adventurous?"   
"Quit it! Put me down!"   
Kagome shot a warning glare at Inuyasha, who seemed to be mildly enjoying Shippou's acrobatic attempts to free himself. "Inuyasha...."   
"Feh."   
Released, Shippou leapt straight into Kagome's arms, sticking his tongue out at the hanyou, who just grunted, and returned to looking bored. Kagome rolled her eyes at the childish display, then grabbed Inuyasha's arm, hauling him along with her. "Oy!"   
"Come on you two. Since Sango-chan and Miroku-sama are okay, we're heading back to the kitchen."   
"Why?" Shippou asked, peering up at her, then moving to the more comfortable spot of her shoulder.   
"Because it's a wreck, and with Yanagi-san and Kagan-san leaving, we're going to clean it up for them."   
"Nani!? We saved the building from burning down!" Inuyasha protested as he was shoved out the door by a very determined looking Kagome.   
"Yes, we did, and that was very nice of us. Now we're going to reassemble the kitchen for them and say a proper goodbye." She finished pushing Inuyasha out the door, leaving him to glare sourly at her decision to be helpful. Wielding a mop and broom just wasn't the same as wielding Tetsusiaga. Cleaning crews never get any glory. 

  
  
The shoji slid to a close softly, and Sango listened to the fading final protestations of the two boys, both not really wanting to clean up a burned, haunted, and completely wrecked kitchen. Turing with a sigh, she placed her hands on her hips and looked at the snoozing Miroku. "You and me again, ne?" an amused smile played at her lips. "Guess you can't try anything unconscious...."   
Kirara, who had been quietly sitting on her haunches by the window, mewed a bit, standing up. Sango smiled and moved to pet her head, the large red eyes blinking up at her. "Ah, you too, Kirara."   
It was full morning by now, and light was pressing against the outside of the window screens. Quietly, Sango opened them, letting in some air and the soft fragrance of the chrysanthemums below the wall. Beyond, sunlight covered the land in a cloudy sky, shifting shadows across the lush grasses and flowing river beyond the mansion. It reflected goldenly into her face, and she leaned against the windowframe, enjoying the view for a moment before turning back and settling herself down to wait.   
  


The square patch of sunlight she let in moved across the room slowly, marking the hours of passing time. Sango had dozed, off and on, and for awhile she'd been relieved by Inuyasha, taking a break for lunch and stretching. Yanagi and Kagan were gone, a small cart of their personal things pushed ahead of them reluctantly, slowly, as though perhaps at any moment, they may change their minds and come back. But they didn't. After a few minutes, they were through the gate, and out of sight of the mansion's walls.   
Now again, she sat beside Kirara, kneeling and idly flipping through a copy of one of the books Kagome had brought. It was a small book, bound remarkably well, Sango thought, by some gai-jin writer named 'Shakespeare'. Yet another thing Kagome had to study for her tests and school. She had made the comment that this was, in fact, very close to the time he would be alive, on another island nation, in another corner of the world. Quietly, she scanned the book, reading the odd passage to while away the time, then slowly got into the screwball humor of the story, the mistaken identities, troublesome youkai...or, in this case, 'fairies,' magic, and the bizarre 'play' at the end of the tale. She was smiling, murmuring the final lines of one of the youkai, a trickster one rather like a kitsune. 

_If we shadows have offended,_   
_Think but this, and all is mended:_   
_That you have but slumbered here,_   
_While these visions did appear;_   
_And this weak and idle theme,_   
_No more yielding but a dream._   
_Gentles, do not reprehend._   
_If you pardon, we will mend._   
_And as I am an honest puck,_   
_If we have unearned luck_   
_Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,_   
_We will make amends ere long,_   
_Else the puck a liar call._   
_So, good night unto you all._   
_Give me your hands, if we be friends,_   
_And Robin shall restore amends...._

  
  


She closed the book in her hand, running a finger over the cover, proudly displaying the title: "_A Midsummer Night's Dream_," with characters sketchily drawn onto the stiff outer paper. Amused, she decided the small one with pointy ears was the one named Puck. It seemed every culture had some form of trickster in its pantheon of magical beings, even ones on the other side of the world, distant as they were. A universal sense of humor, perhaps. As she made that choice of character, she heard a soft breath, sharply drawn, and she looked up from her side of the room, the angle showing that Miroku had opened his eyes, and was now blinking, attempting to look around.   
"Houshi-sama?" she set the book aside, and gathered the folds of her skirt, moving to help him as he sat up, then dizzily sank backward onto the futon. "Don't strain yourself."   
He blinked up at her, brows lifting over wide, innocent eyes. "I don't usually listen to that kind of talk outside a bedroom, Sango."   
"Eh..." she began nervously, then gave him a dirty look and backed away, seeing that he was perfectly fine after all. Then of course came the caustic realizaton; "We _are_ in a bedroom, baka."   
"Ah, well, all the better...."   
She snorted, steaming for a moment and folding her arms. But the bemused expression on Miroku's face faded, and he looked serious again. "Daijobu ka, houshi-sama?"   
"Dizzy, when I sat up...better now. You're not spinning around the room anymore. Otherwise...mild headache. How long have I been out?"   
"Not quite a day. Late afternoon the day after you were attacked."   
"Sou ka..." he murmured, taking that in as Sango stood and moved across the room. He tried to angle his head to see where she was going, but instead got a faceful of curious Kirara, coming to inspect the newly awakened Buddist monk. "Hai, it's good to see you too, Kirara."   
The firecat seemed satisfied with that, and backed away a bit for Sango, returning with Kagome's white medicine box and some water. She knelt down, and began rifiling through the various bottles, cans and packs of bandages, finally finding the one that she wanted. "Kagome-chan said to take aspirin if you have a headache. I think this is the right one," she said as she tried to figure out how to undo the child proof top.   
"You think?"   
"Uh...pretty sure...if I can get it open...." she fiddled with it a minute longer, glared at the bottle top, considered bashing it open with hiraikotsu, then tried again, this time successfully. "I will not be defeated by a lid." She shook out several pills into her hand, then picked one. "Here."   
"Maybe you should-"   
"Don't even ask me to feed you mouth to mouth, houshi-sama."   
"Can't blame me for trying." She rolled her eyes, setting the bottle aside and lifted his head as he took some water with the medication. "Arigatou."   
"You're welcome."   
She placed his head back on the narrow pillow, and he closed his eyes for a moment. "Is everyone all right?"   
"More or less. Yanagi-san and Kagan-san left, after being attacked." That caused him to open his eyes, and he waited for more information. "We seem to be working under the theory there are two yurei now, the little girl one Shippou has been seeing, and the one you saw last night. Do you remember? You said something about it...before you passed out...." she trailed off a bit, remembering the exact way he had brought that particular yurei up. Miroku was watching her warily, and she tried very hard to keep a straight face.   
"I remember. A nun, in grey robes. Blank white eyes."   
"Yes, well...we've decided that one is fighting with the little girl, Ukifune, for some reason...Shippou talked to her this morning, and she knew about the one you saw...and the shikon no kakera. Ukifune may have the shard we're looking for. But no one has been able to find her since this morning. Shippou said she just comes and goes." Sango felt like she was babbling. The information was useful, but if he remembered his dream, then he probably remembered what he did after the dream, and that was rather unnerving at the moment. "Yanagi-san and Kagan-san were attacked, but were all right."   
"That's good...the others are out looking for Ukifune now, rather than the shards?"   
"Something like that. Been cleaning the kitchen too, after the fire. It's a wreck."   
"It's growing stronger."   
"Nani?"   
Miroku looked up at the ceiling for a moment, following the spidery traceries of roofbeams overhead before continuing. "That thing is sending us nightmares, and somehow growing stronger because of them. Almost the way a corrupted soul taints the Shikon no Tama, the jewel reacting to what's around it. Fear, anger, desperation, hatred. They're within a dream, but the emotions are still real, so long as they are felt." He lifted his hand over his face, looking at the wrapping and rosary over the kazaana, the beads dangling downward towards him. His fist tightened around it. Sango watched him, his face carefully blank and somewhat hard of expression as he thought. "Do you still have that rosary I gave you?"   
She blinked in surprise, edging backward a bit awkwardly. He was looking at her now, awaiting a response as she rubbed her palms over her knees, wondering what he was up to, or at least what he was thinking. "Hai...I started wearing it again after the attacks started...in case something came after me again. I don't have any others, so...." she pushed the hem of her sleeve up to reveal the beads twined around her forearm. "Why?"   
"So you have kept it, " he said very calmly, focusing on the ceiling again. "Promise me something?"   
His tone had lightened a bit in the last phrase, and she became suspicious, eyeing him warily. "Nani?"   
"Never give it back to me."   
"Huh?"   
"If you ever see mine break...ever...I want you to run away from me. Fast."   
"Break? Houshi-sama, what in the world were you dreaming about to make you think-"   
He cut her off by grabbing her arm, the beads of the borrowed rosary clacking against each other lightly as he held her wrist. Propping himself up slowly on one elbow, he looked at her very hard, his eyes meeting hers. "We were just talking...Naraku appeared out of nowhere, and broke my rosary. You got the clever idea to give this," he jerked her wrist slightly, causing her rosary to noisily clatter, "back to me. And got sucked in right along with." The intensity in his voice faded, sounding worried. "I thought I'd killed you, Sango."   
She looked at her hand, where the rosaries met each other, and he gripped her wrist so hard it almost hurt. Grimly, she placed her other hand on his, pulling the wrapped hand into hers. "Don't be stupid."   
"Sango, I'm serious-"   
"So am I," she snapped before he could continue. "You think I'd just let you go and die without trying to help? Don't be stupid."   
Miroku, for once, had no idea what to say. Sitting up brought on more waves of dizziness, and he could barely believe he had just heard. He sank back onto the pillow, oddly aware of the way his arm stretched out of the cover, and his wrapped hand was resting in hers. But what she said next unnerved him.   
"You killed Kohaku." He looked at her, disbelieving and denying, though understanding she was now sharing what had happened to her, in her dream. Her eyes were closed, remembering the forest, the fire above the trees, and the image of her brother, before her and armed. "I was fighting with him...I was hurt, and he was about to kill me. You...just took the shard out of his back...he fell over...he fell over, like a puppet with the strings cut...." Miroku felt her hands tightening around his, almost painfully.   
"If somebody were trying to kill you Sango...I would kill them." Then, very quietly, "Even Kohaku."   
She almost laughed, not sure as to why. She wondered if she were hysterical, but doubted it. Despite faint tears in her eyes, she felt deathly calm. Perhaps that was why it seemed ironic. For some reason, the words did not surprise her, but rather confirmed something she already suspected, though did not know for certain. "I know. But there...it was like you didn't even care...."   
He pushed himself slowly up, reaching with his free hand for her face, and cupping her cheek gently. Very lightly, he kissed her, lips brushing lightly against hers, until it was returned, just as lightly, somewhat hesitantly. "This had better not be another damned dream," he mumbled into her mouth, pressing in again and enjoying the response.   
Sango's eyebrow twitched, and she smiled sweetly against his kiss for a moment, reaching behind her. "I don't know. Does this hurt, houshi-sama?" She pinched his hand hard, where it had strayed to her rear end.   
"Itai!"   
"Hm, no, not a dream, then," she frowned as he fell back onto the futon, wincing over his hand. With a sigh, she shook her head and watched him shake it out. "You really do know how to spoil the moment, don't you?"   
"Eh...got greedy?"   
She gave him a sour look and sighed, shaking her head in despair. Miroku watched her, the afternoon's sunlight washing her skin a deep gold color, warm and soft. She had folded her hands into her lap again, and he reached again for her hand. She didn't pull away, but gave him a look of warning, not to try anything again. "I promise."   
Sango lifted an eyebrow in doubt, and Miroku feigned hurt. She shook her head again, a faint blush rising belatedly on her cheeks. It suited her, and he decided to make her blush more often. In the sunlight, she could be very beautiful, after all.   
  
  


Kagome, Inuyasha and Shippou were a bit tired from the various chores of kitchen cleaning and trying to find Ukifune- again. Shippou had had the best luck of it over the last couple days, and though they'd checked the riverside, twice, there was no sign of the mercurial ghost child. Sliding the shoji aside, each of these three paused, with varying expressions of surprise or incredulity. Sango's back was to them, though it was clear she was kneeling beside Miroku. Both were quietly occupied in watching the sunset through the open window.   
Knowing that the taiji-ya usually did not allow Miroku within contact distance, due to fear of groping, this was a slight change of the usual pace. The two incredulous faces turned to Kagome, who had a pleased and slightly 'I told you so' smile on her face. Politely, she coughed, and that startled Sango into moving, spinning around wide eyed to see a confused looking Shippou, a bewildered Inuyasha, and a beaming Kagome.   
"Eh..." Sango began a bit uncertainly. It was hardly as if they'd been caught in the act of doing anything, though the simple fact Kagome was grinning at her conspiratorially was enough to tip her off the other girl knew something was up. Inuyasha and Shippou looked utterly clueless, however, and she was glad when Miroku saved her the trouble of explaining.   
"Arigatou, Sango, for the medicine. I hope it was the correct bottle." The aspirin from that afternoon sat discarded beside Sango, and she hurried to snatch it up, standing and then noticing the precariously piled tray Kagome was holding.   
"Oh, Kagome-chan, let me help you with that..." she set the bottle on the tray and began to busy herself with the various food items Kagome had brought with. Ramen, potato chips, and a steaming bowl of what looked like warmed up canned clam chowder, along with various eating utensils and a pitcher of water to drink. Occupied, Sango felt a little less embarassed, though the fact Inuyasha and Shippou were still confused didn't help much. "I thought the kitchen was ruined?"   
"Yeah, well we salvaged what we could," Inuyasha told her, gaze flicking between Sango and the politely bland expression on Miroku's face. Something finally clicked, and he rolled his eyes, then looked at Kagome's satisfied expression as she moved to help Sango with dinner. "So you were right after all?"   
"Hai," Kagome replied with a smile as Sango froze for a moment.   
Miroku lifted his eyebrows curiously. "Right about what?"   
"Oh, nothing," Kagome said airily, waving a hand as Inuyasha settled himself down next to her, grabbing for a package of ramen. "How are you feeling, Miroku-sama?"   
"Better. Any luck while I was out?" he asked, sitting up and feeling glad the world did not spin this time. After a moment, he came and joined the others in the ring around the tray of food, beside Sango and Shippou.   
"Not really," Shippou told him, ripping open a bag of chips. "Oh, these are those weird tasting ones!"   
"Sour cream and onion," Kagome reminded him, and ladeled some soup into a shallow bowl for herself, one of the wooden ones that survived the morning's attack. The hot liquid warmed her hands through the bowl, and she held it tightly for a moment in the oncoming evening's chill.   
Shippou stuffed his mouth full of the chips, and continued a bit, the others oddly deferring to him in this case, since, after all, he was the only one to have seen the yurei they were looking for. "No signs of her. I thought for sure she'd be down at the river again...at night I saw her once out in the courtyard, but that was it. Just the river. Dunno where else she'd go."   
"Her memorial?" Sango suggested, pouring herself a glass of water from a pitcher.   
"Said she doesn't like going there. I mean, why would she? It's like visiting your own grave. Creepy." He wrinkled his nose as he polished off the potato chips, and wiped the grease on his pants.   
Inuyasha shrugged. "You're sure you saw another one, bozu? Sango said you were babbling something when you passed out."   
"Hai," Miroku frowned, remembering the dream. Though he had told Sango much of it, he was reluctant to reveal much more, and particularly reluctant to reveal as much as he had already to the other three. There was a certain level of it being personal, something to be kept to oneself. Kagome had been the first, and though she had somehow wakened herself from the dream, resisting it, Miroku suspected she remembered it perfectly, and was only claiming not to. "She was clearly the dark force in the dream."   
"And how do you know that?" Inuyasha asked, slightly skeptical.   
Miroku's brow twitched. "Dreams operate on the symbolism of the mind. To me, or any of us, someone wearing a white baboon pelt would be fairly obvious as an enemy."   
"I thought she was dressed as-"   
"She was dressed as a nun." Miroku looked at Inuyasha evenly, and he did not look uncertain about the fact. "Old robes, shorn hair, white eyes. It was very clear."   
Inuyasha slurped down another mouthful of noodles as he mulled that over in his head. So the houshi didn't want to discuss it. Fine by him.   


Evening slipped away, darkening into a cloudy night, blotting out the stars and the gleaming shape of the moon. There was a strong scent of rain on the wind, distant but swift in the air, approaching rapidly from the west. Rumbles sounded above the roof, swirling in drumrolls down to the ground, sending the thin walls of the mansion to shuddering in the dark night. They lit lamps, the thin paper hurricanes pressing the light dimly outward, sweetly scented wax burning and competing with the humid air.   
Night pressed in, drawing down heavily, weighted with water and sleeting rain. Windows were closed tightly against the precipitation, though tiny puddles formed under the sills, slowly dribbling across the tatami. Slowly the candles burned themselves out, charring the edges of the paper tied behind them as they smoked. Each member of the group slowly curled into their futon, warm and dry from the elements outside, resting.   
Inuyasha sat against the inner wall, an arm wrapped around Tetsusiaga, which leaned against his shoulder. To all appearances, he slept, eyes closed, breathing regular and even. Though if one looked very closely, it could be seen that his eyes were cracked open slightly, occasionally sliding across the room watchfully. He was perfectly aware of the pattern of attacks. Kagome, for the jewel. That failing, Sango. To prevent retaliation, Miroku. If, as Kagome proposed, Ukifune was protecting Yanagi-babaa and Kagan-jiji, then it was possible, with their leaving, she may try to protect one of them. And, having personally met only Shippou, he was the most likely candidate for that. Which, of course, left him.   
Inuyasha intended to be completely ready for this bitch.   
And to take her down when he did.   
It was the best way, wasn't it? And likely to be the only way. How he planned to do this, he wasn't really sure. He'd have to figure it out when he got there. That was how he usually fought anyway. His hand tightened on the sheath. Though this wasn't exactly his usual kind of enemy.   
Lightning cracked outside, splitting through the air and flashing, lighting up the patterns on the closed windows, the figures of birds soaring as they brightened then dimmed again, high above the shadowy inked marshlands painted below. Through the drumming of the rain above, and the rumbles of the thunder, a light sound touched his ears, and they perked up slightly, swiveling around towards the sound.   
The strain was tentative, luminiously floating through the rain scented air, hesitantly wandering through the musical chords of a stringed instrument. Slowly, Inuyasha stood, carefully watching the others, who dreamt on, unhearing. He slipped towards the shoji door, ears straining to follow the sound. The sound became pale, fading away into the sluicing rain, and any scent of intruder washed away into the water.   
He pushed open the shoji warily, peering out into the hallway. Though in this moment, the lightning flashed again, sending his shadow into the room he stepped into, bare of tatami mats, slices of light glinting through folding screens. The room was their room, different and the same, and he spun back to check the way he came, finding that he had merely stepped in from a quietly moonlit hallway. No rain thundered above, drowning out sound and sense, no stormclouds blocking in the light of the moon. Here, then, was his turn, though this was not as he expected. For a moment, he cursed the others for not telling him about theirs, so he could know what to expect. Did they know they dreamed, as he did? Did it begin peacefully like this?   
Habit placed a hand on the handguard of the Tetsusiaga, and he thumbed it up just a bit, revealing a sliver of the dulled, decrepit blade. The familiar grip was reassuring, to know he was armed and supposedly capable of defending himself.   
The music began again, lightly picking up in an unsteady yet complicated rhythm, as though the player were testing a new tune, fiddling with the strings as they learned and experimented with the notes. He saw the figure through thin slashes in the screens that surrounded her, a seated figure over a low instrument, waves of black hair falling down behind her. He moved forward, searching for the opening in the screens, allowing entry. The quiet way this began kept him hesitant, not simply whipping out Tetsusiaga and blowing everything away. He was not a subtle person, but he played along for now.   
He rounded the circle, coming to a lacquered screen of deep colors, the light of candles within lighting the transcluscent shades, setting them alive in ghostly vibrance. Three panels, each illuminated carefully, a frame in a story easily read. He paused here, caught by the flash of the second panel, of the image painted there. Backing away a step, he looked at the three frames, and the pictoral story they told. First, a drawing of the mansion, clouds replacing the roof, revealing a glimpse of the person inside. A woman in long robes, her hair falling straight and long behind her as she sat, staring blankly into the room. Discarded papers and brushes sat beside her, unused. A _koto_ sat across from her, disused, on its side.   
The second panel had caught his attention, and his first thought was that the woman stood by a rushing river, straight lines indicating rain. But as a candle within the screens flickered, the colors turned and shifted, and he looked closer. She stood, not on the rock by the river, but rather above the river, her robes caught up in the wind, arms out and hair floating behind her. The third panel revealed only a rushing river, struck by the black slashes of rain, eerily empty of the woman's prescence. Inuyasha looked again at the second panel, the girl who stepped on the air. First he wondered if maybe she slipped. But there was no expression of shock or of horror. Serene sorrow, instead, graced her face, lit lightly from the golden glow inside.   
As the musicality of the strain grew stronger, more certain, he realized that the girl went willingly to her death, drowned in the river beyond the mansion.   
A chord struck sharply, then fell, plucked nimbly, and he returned his attention to what he had to do. She'd keep attacking until she got whatever it was she wanted. And he swore he wasn't going to let something get to Kagome again. His hand went to Tetsusiaga's hilt, and he stepped around the corner, into the light.   
  


  
  


*****************************************   


Koto- A thirteen stringed musical instrument.   
It's Inuyasha's turn.   
Muahaha, I had so much fun writing Sango and Miroku's scene...did that make up for the Miroku's dream not being real? I hope so...^_^ I wasn't going to have them kissing originally, but when I got to the scene, I decided, aw, what the heck, might as well...hehehe. And of course, Miroku has to go and be a dipshit again and try to grope Sango. Adding in the Shakespeare was a whim. I was wondering what Sango would be doing there, by herself, (well, Miroku's there, but he's kind of unconscious...not exactly great for conversations....) so I had her reading something of Kagome's. I doubt Kagome'd give her a history book. (All that knowing the future stuff.) So she got a "_Midsummer Night's Dream_" instead.   
Also wanted to say thanks to Sangosama, for leaving a review about what happened to the rosary in the anime. Gah, they really shouldn't have had it shatter. There's so much plot potential there...I like the manga version better....   
All the cards are on the table, just so you know. Next chapter, things will start to clear up.   
Til then.   
-Queen 


	9. The Floating Bridge of Dreams

Kami Monogatari   
  


_Out of the Black Years_   
_ come the words_   
_the Herald of Death_   
_Listen- it speaks to_   
_those who were not born to die...._   
_-'The Prophecy' Lord of the Rings Soundtrack_   
__ __

_"Those who cling to life die, and those who defy death live."_   
_-sengoku daimyô Uesugi Kenshin_   


  
  
  
  
  


Chapter 8- The Floating Bridge of Dreams   
  


The figure was not what he expected, sitting in an island of light. The tiny candles around her pushed back against the pressing darkness, faintly illuminating the screened space, lighting it enough to see. She did not look at him, but rather kept her eyes lowered onto the silken strings, plucking out a delicate, sad rhythm, mournfully filling the room with sound.   
She plucked at the strings, small picks on her fingers flashing as they moved. After a moment, a very light voice began to sing in accompaniment, weaving in and out of the melody. 

_Omurasaki mo yume no naka_   
_Otsuki miso wa nemurenai_   
_Gin no shizuku o nonda kara_

__

He hadn't seen either of the ghosts that he expected, but by description, he was assuming one was a young girl, and the other a young woman with short hair. This figure fit neither description. Though she was indeed a young woman, her hair was long and rich, falling around her in waves, bound back in loops behind her head. Nor did she dress in ash grey robes, but in shades of lavender, the old fashioned, layered attire of an ancient court. Practicality set in, and Inuyasha supposed that perhaps she had shifted her appearance to unsettle him. She had succeeded, he decided, giving her a moment to finish playing before questioning. There was room for doubt. Though he did want to get this over with, he didn't want to kill the wrong person. Dead already as they may be. 

_Andron, dron, naidron;_   
_Yoru no koe mori ni watareba_   
_Andron, dron, naidron;_   
_Oyasumi, yoiko_   
_Ura ni sogi no ki naitanara_   
_Akai fuku kite, nigemasho_   
_Oyasumi, yoiko_   
_Oyasumi..._ __

Her fingers stilled, lightly resting on the strings, stilling the low vibration. It became very silent for a moment as he wondered if she would speak first. Giving no indication of sound, he decided to get to the point.   
"Which one are you?"   
"Which one do you think I am?"   
He glared at the lowered face, the eyes that would not meet his. Her fingers moved from the strings, which hummed lightly as she lifted them, folding her hands into her long sleeves and kneeling politely on the hardwood floor.   
"Don't play stupid fucking games!"   
The woman flinched, bowing her head and growing somewhat small, almost cowering. "Gomen nasai. It is improper for a man to speak to a woman without screens between them. I do not know how to react. Forgive my rudeness."   
Inuyasha stared at her for a moment, watching her bowing from the waist, asking forgiveness for, what seemed to him, an excess of politeness. Then again, taking in the way she was dressed, the both richness and age of her surroundings, and the time frame this mansion was made in, that her expectations of what was 'proper' were likely very different from his. "Yeah well...I'm pretty rude normally, so stop apologizing about it."   
Still half bowing, she peered upward, revealing her small face. Wide, vibrant lavender eyes peered up at him through a pale face, fringed with heavy lashes. Color, he noticed, not white or blank. She stared at him a moment, then a smile spread on her lips, and she covered her mouth with her sleeve when she laughed once, very lightly. Inuyasha hesitated, then came to the conclusion; "Feh. You're not the one attacking anybody. You're the other one, Ukifune. The kid Shippou saw, aren't you?"   
The lavender sleeve lowered to her lap, and she averted her eyes again. "I am called Ukifune."   
"Good. Maybe you can tell me what the hell's going on." Satisfied that she wasn't likely to hurt him, despite the unusual form she currently wore, Inuyasha sat himself down opposite her, the koto between them. "Floor's damn hard. Don't you have any tatami on it?"   
Bewildered, the girl blinked, "Tatami?"   
"Floor mats? To make it softer? Shit, don't your knees hurt, sitting like that?"   
"Mats?" She considered this a moment. "Such a thing would be much kinder on the knees, I suppose. Though this is the way I was told to sit correctly."   
Inuyasha suddenly became aware of exactly how uncivilized he must look. Around the others, he didn't have to act any other way than how he liked. Well, more or less. There was always the threat of 'osuwari.' Across from this stranger though, he shuffled around a bit, trying to be a bit more formal for once.   
"Yeah, well...."   
"You are pretty rude normally, so do not worry about it," she told him, smiling a little, almost teasing. His ears pricked up, catching the tone of her voice, and he understood she did not care how he sat either. Though apparently she felt required to be formal herself.   
"I thought you were a kid."   
"Children grow up," she replied, then ran a hand over the hem of her robes, quickly returning it inside its sleeve. Then, quietly, "Children change."   
Shippou mentioned Ukifune's tendency to start acting strange, talking weirdly. Apparently, this was an example of her metaphorical speaking, considering Inuyasha got the feeling she was thinking of something entirely else while she spoke. He frowned, wishing she'd talk plain. "So you just grew up?"   
A small smile formed again, and she met his eyes. "Growth is inevitable."   
Inuyasha blinked. Now she was going philosophical. Who did he look like? Miroku? Or Kagome? She read a lot of big books for her precious 'tests.' Maybe she'd get this.   
"Uh...yeah. Where is this place?"   
Again, the smile faded, and she looked down at the harpstrings. "This is where I live."   
"This place has been under attack."   
She winced, drawing in on herself.   
"Kagome thinks you're fighting some other yurei. I don't know if you are or not, but if its true I think you need to kick the ass of whatever is trying to get to you. If this is your home, you need to protect it."   
Ukifune stared at him for a moment, a little disbelievingly. "Kick the ass?"   
He shrugged. "Fight back."   
"This...this is where I live," she repeated quietly, voice defeated.   
The phrasing struck him somewhat oddly the second time. She lived here. But it was not her home. Strange. "You grew up here, didn't you? It's your home," he persisted, watching her face for further reaction.   
"Growing up in a place does not make it your home."   
She spoke simply this time, but it struck coldly. Growing up in a place that was not her home. It sounded familiar. Her fingers reached for the strings, and she plucked them for a moment, the notes hanging in the air, breaking the silence.   
"Where do you live, Inuyasha?"   
"Nani?"   
She met his eyes now, and the warmth had drained away with the color, leaving the lavender pale and distant. This was not real. It was a dream. But like a dream, he did not know how to escape it. He wished somebody would wake him up.   
A finger drew across the silk strings, and a wash of music filled the room, blurring the edges of his vision, rippling and distorting the little world around them. The scents of the room faded away, rich incense and candle wax, slight smoke from the tiny candles. Now they were replaced with the fragrance of flowers, blooming along walkways that were familiar to him, if only in memory. The sound of gurgling water filled his ears, and the sound of shouting and laughter.   
It was a dim place, for all he remembered it. In his memory, a place where it was never either full morning or full evening, where the sun was never as bright as it could be, though perhaps brighter than it could have been. It was a wealthy place, and the wings of the mansion formed around him, wide and far away. He stood on a narrow bridge, arching over a stream that ran through the courtyard, winding its way out of the complex. Spinning around and searching for the one who brought him here, he glanced down into the water below. His reflection was not his own, though still his. Younger, smaller. Softer. He grimaced, and the reflection imitated him, almost mocking, vanishing as he backed away in distaste for the childlike reflection of himself.   
He put a hand on Tetsusiaga, still at his hip. It was a relief to have it there. A reminder that this was not reality. It was a dream, and he would wake from it eventually. Maybe Kagome would wake up and realize he was passed out or something. He didn't like relying on chance.   
A shout caught his attention, drawing his eyes to a ring of men in the courtyard. A ball was being tossed between them as they kicked it back and forth, keeping it from the ground. One of the men hit it too hard, and it popped up, sailing over the heads of the men across from him. Inuyasha backed up a step, almost ready to chase it. But he froze, glaring at the ball instead as it bounced past him.   
"What's 'hanyou'?"   
The ball stilled at the hem of a long robe, the bottom layer a deep purple. Two white hands reached down and picked up the ball, cupping it lightly.   
"Get me the hell out of here!" Inuyasha snarled at Ukifune. This was one of the last places he wanted to be.   
"Why? This is where you live."   
"I get the fucking point! I grew up here, but it's not home! Get me the hell out of here!"   
She shook her head, eyes closed as her grip on the ball tightened. "I used to like to play kemari too. But I was a girl, and that was not proper. So no one played with me. They walked away." She opened her eyes and looked behind him. Frowning suspiciously, he turned, watching the older men fade away, walking inside, leaving them alone on the bridge.   
"So it happened to you too. Big shit. I survived it just fine."   
"Did you?"   
She was looking at him evenly, eyes narrow and hard. Watching him, Ukifune lifted the ball in her hands, tossing it into the air. With surreal slowness, it floated rather than flew, pausing in the air between them, glowing transparent, glowing divine, glittering in the world's dimness. "All your life, what did you want to become?"   
His eyes narrowed in reply.   
"Youkai. Why? To show them you were better than they are. Why? Because they treated you terribly. Why? Because you were different than they, a half breed, something less than they, not whole, something to be despised, reviled, ignored."   
"Shut up!"   
"The truth can hurt when it's put that way, can't it?"   
He growled. "What does this have to do with anything?"   
"Look," she lifted a hand, pointing it at the glowing orb between them. The crystal ball reflected his face, undistorted. Slowly, the reflection changed. Red eyes, blood red eyes. Red stripes on his cheeks. Blood on his face. "You, a youkai."   
Him, a youkai. He hadn't looked in a mirror before. He hadn't seen himself as a youkai before. He'd imagined something like that. Looking something like that. That was almost how Sesshoumaru looked. White hair, stripes on his face. He hated his brother. And yet wanted to become something like him. This was a reflection of himself, a reflection of what he would look like, a full demon. Mirrors could reflect many things. It took him a moment to realize that the image in the mirror was touching its face, and that in reality, he was as well. He snapped his hand away from the stripes sharply.   
"What is Shikon no Tama?"   
"Four souls," he told her instantly, forcing his gaze from the reflection. In the dimness, the light from the glowing ball carried to her face, reflecting oddly there. Pale eyes were paler, pearl colored. "Four souls, in everything." The smile did not belong on that face. Those odd, milky eyes. Like a blind person's. "If they work together, a person's all right."   
"And if they do not?"   
Inuyasha felt himself grow very still, as something began to crystallize in his mind. Those pale, white eyes that should have been lavender.   
"Darkness and light exist right next to one another. Is it the nature of the dark to consume the light? Or for them to balance one another? What happens when this balance is corrupted? Does the dark try to swallow the light? Or does the light attempt to banish the darkness?"   
He remembered something said when they first wandered into Midoriko's cave. There, among the skeletons of the dead youkai. Souls can be good or evil. But what would happen if one of those four 'souls' was disrupted?   
"Which one are you?"   
"Which one do you think I am?"   
"Ukifune."   
Her eyes were unfocused, cloudy, her voice ethereal. She spread her hands apart, and a point glittered in each palm, faintly pink in color. The ball floated back to her at the motion, and she clasped it. It shrunk, disappearing as she cradled it in her hands. "Look into the water then."   
"Don't need to. You drowned yourself, didn't you?" He watched her grow small, shrinking in on herself at the words. "Why?"   
"A blind cripple is of no use at court."   
It was the plainest thing she had said, and she said it softly, hands at her sides, face downward. He half expected to see tears in her eyes. But she did not weep. No tears. Nothing.   
So she went blind and drowned herself in despair for it. And her soul remained. So that was the reason. "There had to be another way for you to live than going and killing yourself."   
"You chose to change yourself by becoming youkai. I chose death, to escape my fate as a human. Is that so different?"   
Chose death, to escape fate as a human. He flinched, looking away and into the water. Images floated there, reflected on the surface of the water. A light formed there, tiny stars patterned on the ripples. The scene shifted, and he watched as two tiny points of light fell from these stars in the sky, then flashed into the crystal pond. A willow trailed branches into the water as fireflies floated in the air. The garden of her memorial. Into the pond just beyond the stone marking her grave.   
Two spirits, one soul.   
The water shifted. The young woman who played the koto stood beside him, her image wavering and changing in the dream, separating.   
Two people, one soul.   
One reached the shards first.   
One young, smiling. One older, expressionless. They stood beside each other, resembling each other, though different. He stepped away from the railing of the bridge, looking at the girl beside him. Once again, her eyes were lavender, pale lavender, wide and watchful.   
"What should I do?"   
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again, looking at him. "Wake up, Inuyasha."   
He watched her lift her hands, palms glowing brightly as a ball of white light formed between them, growing. "Oy! You can't just send me back! You have to fight that thing off! It's you! What the hell am I supposed to do to-"   
A smile washed across her face at that. "Fight what I am, then? Or accept what I am?"   
"What the hell are you babbling about now?" he shouted in reply. She was going philosophical on him again. The light in her hands was spilling radiance all around them, a bubble of brightness, glowing like the light of fireflies, brightening, dimming, glowing again.   
"Wake up Inuyasha. You have other things to do now, than talk to me."   
"Other things?"   
The light blinded him, searing his eyes as the world vanished around him.   
  
  


Darkness met his eyes, and they focused to adjust to the difference. He lay slumped against the ground, and it took a moment to push himself upward, blinking against the dark. It was silent. No rain drummed against the tiles of the roof, sliding down outside the window. Figures slept on futons just beyond him. Though one of these was empty, the blanket overturned, the bed rumpled as though one had climbed from it. And in that moment, he knew what other things he had to do.   
Because Kagome was gone.   
  
  
  
  
  
  


*****************************************   
  


Notes for this chapter...fun stuff.   
First off, the song Ukifune is singing is called '_Lullaby_' and it's from the anime _Key the Metal Idol._ I currently do not know the full translation of the lyrics, but she's singing something along the lines of being 'Inside the lavender dream.' No, it's not written for the _koto_, but it's a beautiful song...one of the best anime songs I've heard. I highly reccomend it.   
Yes, Ukifune looks different when Inuyasha first sees her. She's also dressed differently, as an adult would dress. Basically she's wearing formal attire for the Heian era, which seems fairly different from what I've seen princesses/hime wearing in Inuyasha. Heian clothes were much more elaborate...due to their general size and emptiness (and lack of electricity, of course ^.~) Heian mansions were pretty cold and dark...so they wore many layers of clothing, and dressing became a bit of a fetish for the women. Ukifune's clothes are layered and loose, pooling around her. No stiff, tight obi. It's very fluid, and the robes would trail on the ground behind her. Very long hair was also customary, and hers would be down to her feet, if not longer. If you remember back to those flashback episodes with Inuyasha's mother again, she was dressed much more like Ukifune would have been...layered to the point of being padded, with long, loose robes.   
Inuyasha also makes a comment about the floor being hard, and not having tatami on it...Ukifune seems puzzled...that's because tatami mats hadn't been invented in her era. When those ladies knelt on the floor, it was hard wood. Sounds painful, ne?   
One last note...this chapter's title, '_The Floating Bridge of Dreams_' is lifted from Murasaki's '_The Tale of Genji._' It was too beautiful of a title for me not to use, once I'd decided to have them on a bridge, in a dream. It fit too well, I suppose. But '_The Floating Bridge of Dreams_' is also a chapter title in '_Genji_.'   
Sorry this chapter is a bit shorter than the others. But I wanted Inuyasha's dream to be self-contained. Kagome's is next...her 'real' dream. Or nightmare. Whichever you'll prefer to call it.   
Ja.   
-Queen 


	10. A Mirror of the Heart

Kami Monogatari   


_Things have turned a deeper shade of blue_   
_And images that might be real_   
_May be illusion_   
_I'm so free_   
_No black and white in the blue_   
_Everything is clearer now_   
_Life is just a dream you know_   
_That's never ending_   
_I'm ascending...._

_-'Blue' from Cowboy Bebop_

  
  
  
  
  
  


Chapter 9- A Mirror of the Heart   
  


White. A pure, clean color.   
A young woman sat in the kitchen of her home, quietly humming to herself as she moved about, preparing food for dinner. The sun would set soon, and soft red light glanced through the bamboo screens over the door. She had lifted it that afternoon, helping circulate air through the house. Turning to the side, she moved to the small fire glowing at the hearth, kneeling beside it and setting down bowls. Two, precisely. A smile flickered to her lips for a moment, vanishing a moment later as she thought. Six months. Six months, married. Six months...happy. The smile flitted across her face again, then spread when she glanced to the pillow her husband usually sat on while they ate.   
A small, white butterfly had settled itself there, wings unfolding and folding, iridescent in the warmth of a sunset glow.   
"Butterfly?" she asked, contemplating the insect momentarily. "Who's coming to the door?" It answered her by spreading its wings and taking to the air, fluttering around the room and disappearing through an open window. There was a magicality to the appearance of a butterfly. An premonition given that someone was about to arrive. She smiled, tucking a loose strand of dark hair behind an ear and standing. Pots clanked as she pulled them out of their drawers, placing them on the table. The sack of rice was heavy, but her hands were callused differently now, used to lifting and daily work, not shooting arrows. She looked at her hands, the webbing between thumb and index finger, the traceries and patterns across her palms. Separating them, she looked into a bucket of water, seeing her reflection there. Dark hair, falling around her shoulders, clouding around her face. She still felt unaccustomed to her new clothing. A kimono, far less notable than what she was used to. Deep blue shades, but light as the summer sky around her neck, little white flowers embroidered on the hemline.   
Unfortunately, the water she peered in was shallow. "He forgot to fill it again," she sighed, picking it up by the handle and turning around, just as the slatted screen door was flung aside, admitting the one who had forgotten to fill the bucket.   
"Oy," he said as he stepped inside, removing a red outer kimono and tossing it into a corner. She arched an eyebrow.   
"You have such a nice way of greeting people."   
He grinned a little at her as she walked towards him with the bucket. "Where you headed?"   
"The river, baka," she replied, angling herself away as he tried to prevent her from leaving by grabbing her waist and leaning in. She brought the empty bucket up between them, pushing him back a bit. "You're in a good mood. Trouble today?"   
"Hell yeah," he smiled, cracking his knuckles and releasing her. "Youkai have been avoiding this place since I moved in permanently. Found some centipede thing swarming around in the forest."   
"And you blew it apart."   
He leaned in again, a grin plastered across his face.   
"Water, food, dinner," she moved away, pushing aside the bamboo curtain. "Dessert."   
He laughed. It was good to hear him laugh. She remembered other days, when he would have just growled at her. She slipped outside and headed down the footpath to the river. It was worn from many footsteps, narrow and winding down to the water's edge.   
Cicada noisily greeted the oncoming evening as she dipped the bucket into the water. Unusually content, she slipped her sandals off and stepped into the water. Colored pebbles under the water rolled away where she stepped. She smiled as she wriggled her toes in the silt, the hem of her skirt dampening as it contacted the water. It made her feel childlike, standing there in the water, barefoot and watching the sunset. Why shouldn't she be happy? She was at peace. She had a good husband, if he was somewhat of a pottymouthed baka at times. And he was happy with her. They were happy. It brought a smile to her lips, thinking of him. They were married.   
Together, they would live this life. It was a new life, not like the one before. The one before the Shikon no Tama that brought them together. Strange, how something so corrupted could bring people together as well. A new life, together, with Inuyasha. Perhaps it wasn't so true, that nothing good ever came of the Shikon no Tama. She closed her eyes, lashes resting on her cheeks. Did she miss her old life? Not so long as she had him. He found satisfaction in guarding the village with her. She let the bucket slip from her fingers, and heard it splash into the water, drifting a bit before it was caught on a rock. She drank in the sunlight, the fading rays warming her face. "A new life...."   
It felt so real. It was real. This place was real. She wasn't who she was before, not now. Not here. "I am...my name is..." she opened her eyes, hands held loosely at her sides. "My name is...Kikyou."   
The word tasted strangely on her lips, and she opened her eyes, wondering at it. Why should her name sound strange to her? She had known no other. Kaede-chan called her onee-sama. Big sister, and that was what she was. To others, she was the village miko, its guardian. To Inuyasha, she was Kikyou. The only one who saw her as a woman, not as some magical being, separate and inhuman. Perhaps it was because for so long, he had been inhuman himself. He, neither human nor youkai. She, neither human nor kami.   
It tasted of metal, the name, tasted of lead. "My name is...Kikyou," she tried again, searching for the comfortable familiarity there was in one's own name. "Kikyou. Kik...K...." It grew harder, difficult as she struggled to discover why her name sounded alien to her own ears. She heard it daily. What was in a name? It was ascribed to her, it was who she was. What other name could she have? She pressed her hand to her throat as she repeated it, feeling the vibration of her speech.   
"Daijobu ka, Kagome?"   
She turned, puzzled at the voice. A young woman sat on the stones behind her, on the riverbank, dressed in the dull grey robes of a Buddhist nun. She began to bow politely, but noticed that the woman's face was turned upward, faced directly into the blinding sun. And indeed, the woman was blind, her eyes pale, white, and sightless.   
"Gomen nasai," she apologized politely. "I believe you have made a mistake...my name is...my name is..." her voice faltered, faded into uncertainty. "My name is not Kagome."   
Kagome. A familiar sound in her ears. A sweet taste, like something she was accustomed to. Kagome. My name is Kagome. Ka-go-me. Kagome is my name. I am Kagome. Kagome.   
She shook her head to clear it, long hair falling around her shoulders. No, that wasn't right.   
"Ah, I see," the young woman replied, eyes roaming back and forth across the horizon for a moment. "So sorry, to have mistaken you. But the one who bears the Shikon no Tama is called Kagome, ne?"   
Shikon no Tama. That was a thing gone now, dissolved away, purified. Vanished. For a blind woman, a woman with powers like herself, to bring up the jewel now was unsettling. Now, the moment she was truly beginning to feel free. "The Shikon no Tama is gone, and it has been for some time now." She moved out of the water brusquely, splashing a trail onto the sand and leaving footprints. "Gomen."   
"Oh, is that the truth?" the other woman tilted her head to the side, pearl colored eyes unfocused, yet trained on her. "Then what rests around your neck?"   
A heartbeat. A heartbeat throbbed in her ears for a moment, like a drum, pounding hard. She had not been a miko for six months. Six months of happiness. Six months of being simply Kikyou. But being a miko was ingrained into a soul, the power there, always there, dormant, perhaps, but always there. No aura surrounded this blind woman. No magical sense, positive or negative. Only emptiness.   
She reached to her neck, and drew out a thin chain. Her hands were shaking when she looked down, eyes finding that in her fingers, an oblong chunk of the tama rested, uneven and broken, chipped away in fragments. It glittered in her hand.   
Kagome. I am Kagome.   
The other woman was standing, weaving her way upward from the rock and stepping forward awkwardly in her permanent darkness. "Yare, yare. What did you do to the Shikon no Tama?"   
"I...I broke it."   
"Ara, so then you are Kagome," the other woman pressed, slowly moving towards her.   
"No...I am...my name is...."   
"Which one are you?"   
Her head lifted as she was approached. The woman's face was blank, eyes blinking at her in an unsettling way, both seeing and blind at once. Something strange about her blindness, something strange about her aura of nothingness. Her hair was shorn, as it should be, slanting off at her cheekbones, dark and contrasting to how pale she was.   
This was not right. Something here was not right, and as a miko, she searched for the wrongness of this place. Some sense of evil, some sense of trickery.   
She backed away a step, heel striking the lapping water behind her. Startled, she glanced down and saw her reflection in the ripples of the water, shifting and flowing away from her on the surface of the waves. Blue kimono, deep sapphire color, with white flowers on the collar. Blue, the color of the sky, great and wide and free. Her reflection was not her own. A hand reached up and touched her face, exploring the younger vision of herself.   
"Shikon no Tama formed from the heart of a miko named Midoriko, who lived very long ago," she was told. The other woman's voice was very soft, elegiac and sad, though cold. "The heart is where the soul resides, the emotions of a person. Not like the head, just for thoughts. If there is hatred in the heart of the one who holds the Tama, it grows corrupted and turns dark. It reflects, as a mirror reflects, absorbing and feeding off the hatred of others. The tama is a heart. It is your heart."   
It glowed in the hands of Kikyou, whispering to her wordlessly of another way things had happened. Trickery, deception. She shot Inuyasha. To be betrayed by one she loved hurt more deeply than any other kind betrayal, and in her pain, she lashed out thoughtlessly. She had shot him, and pinned him to a tree.   
And five hundred years later, she had freed him again.   
But then, she was not Kikyou anymore.   
A thin hand reached out, and twined fingers around the chain of the shards of the Shikon no Tama, snatching it away. It snapped easily from Kagome's neck, free.   
"Such an important relic. You should find a better way of keeping it with you," the woman told her, stepping away as Kagome turned. "You'll lose it that way."   
She started forward, frowning. Regardless of caution, this stranger should not hold the shards of the tama.   
"Give it back to me," Kagome ordered her, stepping forward with a hand outstretched. But something held her back, warning her from moving forward. The sun set behind her, light streaming past and striking the other woman on the riverside. It struck the other one strangely, glowing against her short hair and reflecting redly against her white eyes, casting her in stark, cruel shades.   
"A pure heart._ Kokoro._ My dream was to live above the clouds, in the capitol. To serve the Imperial court so long ago. That was a pure wish. But something happened to take that away from me. And so now I wraith around my old home, trapped, haunting the place I can never leave. I will get stronger. I will escape my fate. I will be _free."_   
White, sightless eyes lowered to the large fragment of the jewel.   
She pressed it to her lips.   
And as Kagome moved forward, she swallowed it.   
  
  


"Kagome! Kagome!"   
The name reverberated through the mansion, screamed and shouted, over and over. First by one voice, then by many. Footsteps pounded at the floorboards, booming through the empty place. Inuyasha flew from room to room, thoughts edging sharply on panic. Horrible thoughts can come when in a panic, flowing with silent lucidity through a mind. The downpour erased her scent, and the still puddles steamed. The rain had slowed, drizzling then stopping, rainwater dripping from the sloping roofs.   
Through his panicked lucidity, a thought pushed its way forward. The ghostly image of a yurei, stepping off a shelf of rock in the rain, tumbling quietly into a flooding river. Inuyasha froze at the steps of the verandah, then turned, a sick feeling welling up in his stomach as he bolted in the opposite direction of the others. The river. The river they walked by, the river Ukifune drowned in.   
The river that steamed like a living thing, the bellow of a dragon roaring in the forming rapids, swelling and frothing black and white.   
"Kagome!"   
He sniffed the wind, trying to orientate himself along the river, searching for Kagome, searching for the place he had seen in his dream, painted onto a lighted screen. The roar was all he could hear, the river charging along its course, carving out a new one.   
A light struck his eyes, colors of pink shifting into lavender and purple, a radiating mandalora of light, blossoming beside the river. On the ground beneath the glowing light, a crumpled figure lay, a hand under her cheek, brows drawn as though in pain, though she slept soundly, oblivious to the thundering of the sky above, and the roar of the rising river beside her. Dark hair spilled over her face, over her shoulders, clothed in deep blue, color of a midnight sky. A tree splintered upstream, cracking loudly and crashing into the river, torn down by the harsh wind. Its breaking accompanied a darkness in the center of the light, streams of ash grey robes flowing around it, shorn hair flying upward, swirling as white eyes turned black and wide, stretching.   
He drew Tetsusiaga, and the decrepit blade grew as he ran forward. Kagome lay just under that darkening light, and he intended on either getting her away from it, or putting that light out altogether.   
Her head turned sharply. She saw his charge.   
Around the dark figure, the ground convulsed, buckling and shifting, as wind swarmed upward from the grass, and a dark, silent wall formed, a dome surrounding her.   
Tetsusiaga struck the barrier, sending shockwaves through the translucent blackness, sending it swirling and writhing as the blade was rejected.   
She floated in the air, hovering inside it, fluxes of lavender light arching around her, silently flowing upward. A look formed on her face, slowly, an expression replacing the emptiness. It was one of displeasure. Not anger, or rage. The person outside her wall was nothing more than an annoyance.   
A hand rose, pointed at him. Under Inuyasha's feet, the ground began to rumble and sway, water from the river seeping into the cracks forming geysers and shooting up around him as purple light erupted underneath, sending him flying upwards.   
"Inuyasha!"   
The shout was accompanied by Sango's hiraikotsu, bouncing off the barrier and spinning backwards towards her. She grabbed it, staggering at the force of the return. Miroku fell into step alongside her as she ran forward again, Kirara already in the air, catching Inuyasha as he came down again from the blast below.   
"Houshi-sama, can you try your-"   
"No, it's almost like a miasma. I don't think the kazaana will work in this instance."   
Inuyasha was on a knee, looking fairly pissed off as he leaned on Tetsusiaga. Shippou had taken that moment to run out into the fray, and was asking Inuyasha, "Daijobu ka? Inuyasha?"   
"I can't use the Kaze no Kizu...not with that thing in the way...I won't know where to hit, not with Kagome inside...."   
Sango and Miroku arrived in time to hear that statement, as Inuyasha stood up. One by one, they looked inside the darkening dome, and the glowing figure inside it. Energy was gathering around the yurei's body, and it flickered between solidarity and ghostliness, forming into a body of soil and rock and water, in the shape of the spirit within.   
Miroku struck the outer wall with his staff. Arches of lightning fluctuated up it, and he staggered back at the shock, grimacing at his hand as his fingers burned on heated metal. Sango started to approach, but he waved her off, shaking his head and backing away from his dropped staff.   
"I...Inuyasha..." Shippou began a bit uncertainly, stepping forward as the figure began to coalesce. It was familiar. Different, but familiar. "Is that Ukifune?"   
"That kind of depends on how you look at it. But yeah," Inuyasha replied, testing out Tetsusaiga's weight and letting his eyes roam around the circle marking the wall's edge. There had to be a way in. There was always a way inside. There had to be. Kagome was inside. He had to get inside.   
"So we just sit and watch?" Shippou shouted up at him. "You've got to save them!"   
"Them?" Inuyasha roared back. "Your little girlfriend is trying to kill Kagome!"   
"Ukifune is not my girlfriend! And she's not bad! She's not trying to kill anybody! It's that one! Kill that one!"   
"That _is_ Ukifune, baka!"   
"It is not! You're lying!"   
"Shippou, shut up and listen to me." Inuyasha glared down at the little kitsune, who had screwed up his face to look as furious as he could. "Your friend the ghost girl is having problems with the shikon no kakera inside her. I think I saw it in her hands. Two of them, one in each."   
Shippou remembered the how she had run away before.   
_She clapped her hands together, holding them before her and squeezing her eyes shut as though pained. Her eyes flew open again as a brilliant light emanated from her clasped hands, blinding Shippou in a dazzling glow of lavender._   
He squeezed his eyes shut at the memory. "She wouldn't hurt anybody! Not on purpose!"   
"Shippou-chan," Sango began softly, kneeling down to his level and putting a hand on his shoulder as the kitsune adamantly refused to stop glaring at Inuyasha, who had turned his back.   
"I'm going to try to break through, without using the full force of the Kaze no Kizu," he said over his shoulder as he backed away. The form inside was growing solid, pulsations of light fluxing around her.   


Inside the dome, Kagome opened her eyes to a bleary world of darkness, shifting darkness that blotted out the stars. Energy floated around her, crackling and filling the world inside. She lifted her head, and dizziness sent her mind spiraling downwards, hedging on the darkness. She fought it back, and lifted her head again, watching through shifting colors as Inuyasha stepped along the border of the wall, backing away and readying the Tetsusiaga.   
"He's going to force his way in...."   
She turned her head and watched as the figure in the light absorbed the energy inside, filling her and increasing exponentially as she formed.   
"No Inuyasha...she'll absorb it...."   
Just beyond her, the grey robes of yurei floated. Kagome pulled herself forward, wincing as she placed her arm down on a sharp rock and felt it through her yukata and skin. The face of the woman above her was contorted, black eyes glittering as she folded her arms around herself defensively. But through the oncoming unconsciousness, Kagome's vision narrowed, searching. Though her arms were wrapped protectively around her chest, something glowed there, brightly, like a star. This same woman had said, in a dream; '_The tama is a heart. It is your heart._'   
It was her heart. She was using it as a heart. Somewhere to contain her drifting soul. And to it, the rest would be summoned. And the with the tama corrupted, it corrupted her.   
Kagome didn't know what she was doing. She was not trained to exorcise ghosts, but she did know why this one was attempting to reform her body. Free. She wanted to be free. So Kagome reached out, and grabbed a fistful of the woman's robe.   
And caused her to scream.   
A convulsion wracked the yurei, the scream pitched and ripping through the air. The force rising up and reaching out made the world around Kagome dance into blackness, and as she fell back, she watched a light form beyond her, a second figure, an illuminated shadow in long, flowing robes of lavender, dark hair drifting out behind her as she reached forward, the two points of light in her hands glowing divine.   
Then all Kagome saw was the blackness of a night without stars.   


The scream cracked through the transparent wall as Inuyasha lifted Tetsusiaga overhead, searching for the scent that would show him where to strike. This was not a youkai he faced, but a yurei, a ghost. But she had a scent. Chrysanthemums and rain, whorling outward and towards him, an aura of lavender light, with the brilliant brightness of a star of destruction. And as he found it, the wall rose by itself, revealing a battle of wills inside.   
Ukifune floated behind the copy of herself, her transparent arms reaching around the one before her, reaching through. Her hands glowed, power spilling out and washing over the ground, lighting it as she reached for the Shikon no Tama, the heart of the second figure. She clung to it, refusing to let go as black ribbons slashed backward, trying to force her off.   
Her eyes glowed, and they shifted from the figure she held to the one on the ground, then to the one rushing forward, towards her.   
_ Inuyasha!_   
It was not a spoken order, but one told through thought and expression, and one he understood.   
She released her hold, floating backward as he moved forward, finding the swirling clouds of scent that marked the place of the cutting wind.   
"Kaze no Kizu!"   
And the world sunk into silence.   
  
  
  
  


*****************************************   


Oy, oy, that's just about the end...epilogue to go, to clear things up...because that's not really and ending.   
Kokoro- heart, spirit, soul.   
To start at the beginning, the day before I started in on this chapter, I was browsing through a book of Japanese myths. (Arigatou, Melete-chan! :D) In it, I found a small story about butterflies, and how they represented the souls of the living. (Living, in contrast to fireflies representing the souls of the dead.) When one appeared around you, it meant someone you knew was coming. So I decided to use it in this chapter's opening scene. Like it?   
And yes, Kikyou. I hope you're not mad at me about that dream...I was deliberately vague with descriptions of 'Kagome' and Inuyasha in that scene, though 'Kagome' is wearing the kimono that Yanagi gave her. "_A kimono, far less notable than what she was used to,_" could refer to either Kagome's modern day school uniform, or to Kikyou's miko clothes.   
It seems fairly apparent that Kagome would be mad/afraid if Inuyasha left her for Kikyou. So I compounded the problem by giving Kagome a dream in which her role in the past never occured: ie, the entire Inuyasha storyline. She always seems to be running away from being an incarnation of Kikyou...two sides of a personality, I suppose. Besides, we don't really know for certain what Kikyou was like while she was alive...it's open to too much interpertation. (At this point, anyway...it's possible more will be explained in later chapters of the manga, but as of right now....) The ressurected Kikyou-golem is possibly not the same as the real, living Kikyou from before the story began.   
So. Onto the epilogue.   
  



	11. Epilogue

Kami Monogatari

  
  
  


Epilogue:   
  


It was not a cool day, but Kagome hugged the blanket tightly around her shoulders regardless. There is something comforting about wrapping a blanket around you, something warm and soft, protective, if only a large piece of cloth. Sitting in the shade of the outer verandah of the mansion, she looked out over the fields sloping down to the river below. It still ran high, and if she turned her head, she could see the ring of broken earth that marked the place the dome had formed, and the slashes that lanced through it, ending on the other side of the river, evidence of the effectiveness of Inuyasha's Kaze no Kizu.   
In her hands rested the broken chain of the Shikon no Tama, the large chunk attached to it, and two small shards, resting lightly in her palm, glowing only faintly in the afternoon sunlight.   
Nightmares. Sango, a nightmare. Miroku, a nightmare. Kagome had nightmares as well. Two, precisely. The first time she had found her own way out, not giving in to the illusion presented before her, not believing it to be real. But the second time...so very different. Watching the stillness of the shards in her hand, she sighed very lightly as she thought about this. The first time, it was clearly a dream. The second time she was Kikyou. Kikyou who lived with Inuyasha, a human Inuyasha, and both of them seemed happy. Content with their lives. Inuyasha, who chose to become human, to live as a human. Kagome closed her hand around the shards, and felt the sharp edges press against her skin. A different possibility of what could have been, but was not.   
Kagome remembered the first time she picked up a bow, and wished that Kikyou, her past self, would help her somehow. As though some fragment of that soul still existed in her, and would perhaps guide her arrow. Now...now with Kikyou resurrected, Kagome did not want to be anything like her. Kikyou was a rival, in a way, even though it embarrassed Kagome to think in those terms. Kikyou, resurrected with a part of her soul. Part of Kagome's soul wandered in a false body, part of Kagome's soul manipulated and tried to kill her. Part that tried to pull Inuyasha to hell. And if that was, somewhere in there, part of Kagome...then, in different circumstances, could Kagome do these same things? As in her dream, Kikyou could be so kind, so happy?   
Which one are you? she was asked. Which one are you?   
Would he still choose her, Kagome, if their roles were reversed?   
Which one was she? Dark or light? Reborn or resurrected? Were they so different from each other?   
She bit her lip, glad she was alone. Shippou was wandering around down by the river, and if she squinted, she could see him. He spent some time standing on the ledge of rock by the riverside, where Ukifune had held back the dark yurei, and Inuyasha had rescued her. Poor Shippou, still trying to find some remnant of the little girl Ukifune, now gone.   
Inuyasha, with the yurei destroyed, had left her to sleep alone in her room for a bit, and she had risen when he had left, after some long length of time. And now she sat on the verandah, worrying and wondering.   
"You're awake," she heard as there was the soft sound of a shoji sliding open, and light footfalls as Inuyasha approached, sitting down beside her. He waited a moment for her to say something, and when she didn't, he leaned forward, peering around a curtain of hair at her face. "Oy."   
"You have such a nice way of..." she began, slightly irritated, but then trailed off at her own words.   
"Nani?"   
"Nothing...."   
He frowned, not understanding the distant look on her face. They sat there for a few moments, then Inuyasha ventured, "Sango and Miroku went on Kirara to the village, to tell the jiji and the babaa. They should be back soon."   
Kagome nodded, and Inuyasha looked a little uncomfortable, wondering if she was mad or something again. She didn't really look mad, and she wasn't acting mad, but sometimes he could never figure out what was wrong with her. He scratched his head a little. "Daijobu ka, Kagome?"   
She turned and looked at him, and the curious and slightly worried expression on his face. "Hai...don't worry..." she summoned up a smile. "Just tired." That seemed enough to satisfy him, and she looked down at her hands, opening them slightly. "Arigatou...for remembering to get the shards."   
"Feh, I was trying to...feh!" his expression soured a bit, and he folded his arms. Kagome smiled a bit sadly.   
"Arigatou, Inuyasha. For saving me."   
His ears twitched a little, feeling pleased. Carefully, he snuck a glance at her. She was scrutinizing the shikon no kakera in her palm, and he frowned at her distraction. Something was bothering her, despite telling him she was tired. Curious, he began to say, "Kagome..." just as she held up one of the shards for him to see.   
"Look...."   
"Nani?" he asked, switching his attention there. She held the sliver of jewel into the shadows, where its own glow could be more clearly seen. A pale brightness emanated from it, tinged with a lavender tint. He blinked once, startled. "Looks pure."   
"It is."   
"How's that possible?"   
"I have no idea..." Kagome said, closing one eye and considering the shard for a moment before returning it to her hand, closing it and withdrawing into her blanket.   
"Well, those shards were the ghost kid's. She was the good one, right? Maybe she was pure hearted or something."   
"Maybe...I don't know...they were the same person, weren't they, Inuyasha?"   
He remained silent. Two spirits, one soul. Two people, one soul. One young, smiling. One older, expressionless. They stood beside each other, resembling each other, though different.   
"Iie."   
"Nani?"   
He hesitated, thinking through his words carefully as he spoke. "That yurei wasn't Ukifune. When the shikon no kakera came, it changed her. She wasn't the same person anymore."   
Kagome watched him, listening quietly and understanding the double meaning of his words. He kept his eyes forward when he spoke, looking out across the swaying grass beyond the mansion. Finishing, he looked down at her. "You sure you're all right?"   
She rested her chin on her bare knees. After spending a couple days in a yukata, it felt a little odd being back to her school uniform. She was Higurashi Kagome again, the girl who fell through the well, who traveled in the past and sat beside Inuyasha, a hanyou and the son of a great youkai lord. Higurashi Kagome, not Kikyou, a miko from the sengoku jidai.   
Which one was she?   
Inuyasha debated with himself for a second, and finally decided to do what would probably just get him in trouble. He hated it when she looked so sad like that, and it was the only thing he could think of to do about it. So he reached out and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to him in a hug. He was somewhat surprised when she let him, burying her face into his shoulder and tightening her fingers on the fabric of his kimono. He let her hold on, and leaned back against her, loaning her his strength for awhile. In return for it, he rested his cheek against her hair, and let the soft scent of her shampoo sweetly fill his senses.   
She wanted to tell him her dream. Tell him why it bothered her, even if it scared her. She remembered how happy she felt in the dream...if that was her at all. She lifted her head, asking, "Inuyasha?"   
He turned to look at her, and somewhere, in the middle of their movement, his lips brushed against her cheek, very lightly on accident. Kagome's eyes widened a bit at the near contact, and Inuyasha suddenly found the wooden floor very interesting. "Gomen..." he started to mumble awkwardly, but hesitated when he realized Kagome was staring at him curiously. He watched her move her hand up to his chin, exploring the contours of his face, tracing up to some of the white hair that fell over his shoulders, which she touched very lightly. Then a little smile formed as she reached higher, tweaking an ear. He frowned, closing one eye as she did so, but not saying anything to stop her.   
Her hand returned to his cheek, and she told him, very softly, "I like you how you are now."   
Uncertainly, he lifted a hand to her hair and ran his clawlike hand through it, fingers brushing through the soft ends, then returned it to the nape of her neck, warm where he touched her skin. "I'm not good with this shit...."   
She sighed, smiling sadly, though not quite in exasperation.   
And then she let him kiss her.   
  
  
  
  
  


*****************************************   


The End.   
Okay, I know I made you wait for Inuyasha/Kagome romance til the bitter end, but I told you to bear with me, way back in the beginning, ne? Was it worth the wait?   
sighs> Well, now that we're at the very end of the story, I have a confession to make, about Ukifune. Oh, it's nothing bad, mind you. But you should know that I've written stories about her before. At the time of writing this, there are three others involving her that I've done. Again, in the first author's notes, I said this was my first full length Inuyasha fic...but I'd been writing for awhile. I've been writing _Bishojo Senshi Sailormoon_ fics for some time, and 'Ukifune' appears in three _Sailormoon _fics I've written thus far. So this, in a way, is a prequel to those fics. If you've read any of the others, you'll notice I've dropped a couple hints and references of things to come throughout this one. I just happen to like writing about Ukifune, and thought she'd play well in an Inuyasha fic, historical time frames being what they are. So...if you enjoyed this fic at all, happen to like _Sailormoon,_ liked Ukifune, and want to know a fuller back story to who she is and her past, (or future, depending on how you want to view it) I'm going to shamelessly plug for my other Ukifune fics, the first being '_The Bloom of the Mountain Cherry,_' then, '_The Weaver of Dreams,'_ and most recently, '_The Golden Rule.'_ Though there, I must warn you, she is called Kami. And that is another partial inspiration for the title of this fic. As for why her name is Kami there...well, you'd have to read. ^.~   
Either way, I hope you enjoyed the story. Please review or email...or both...^^;; Comments are always welcome, criticism is also welcomed. Pointless flames will be doused with water. (Though that may short circuit my computer. ^_~)   
Ja ne, til next storytime.   
-Queen 

iceaffinity@hotmail.com   
fic complete 1/13/02   



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